


Three-Handed Pinochle

by DaughterofElros



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Historical, M/M, Modern, Multi, Queer History, Time Travel, World War II, eventual polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-26 23:14:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30113526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofElros/pseuds/DaughterofElros
Summary: Bucky Barnes understands what's going on before almost anyone else. He realizes Steve isn't coming back. But an unexpected invitation to the past has him opening doors he never imagined existed, and revisiting memories of his relationship with Steve Rogers- past, present, and an unusual definition of the future.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This began as an Endgame Fix-It Fic, and very quickly became a love letter to Queer folks in history. I ended up doing so very much research in all sorts of modalities. In particular, the books "Coming Out Under Fire" by Alan Berube, "Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940" by George Chauncey, "We’ve Been Here All Along: Wisconsin’s Early Gay History" by R. Richard Wagner and "LGBT Milwaukee (Images of Modern America)" by Michail Takach and "My Queer War" by James Lord were deeply instrumental published works in crafting the world in which Bucky and Steve would have had their queer awakenings.
> 
> Additionally, there's the slightest crossover to the Maggie Hope mystery novels by Susan Elia MacNeal, which are set in London during World War II. Bucky's friend David is in fact David Green from those novels.

In the instant that Steve doesn't reappear, Bucky knows. 

He realizes he almost knew it before Steve even went. He was missing him already. The way Steve has talked about Peggy, about seeing her in ’70, the way that the shield had started to weigh on him even before Hydra and Wakanda, the gut punch it had been to him in Sokovia, seeing his face up there on a wall with the word fascist splashed across the image, and how he couldn't get it out of his head… Bucky had had a sense that Steve maybe wasn't coming back this time.

In a way, his Steve didn't even exist- they'd never had a chance to belong to each other, no matter how much Bucky had always believed they belonged together- some way, somehow… even when the ways they found might get them hauled in front of the Board of Officers and get them dismissed as confirmed sodomites. 

There had always been something in the way- the War, The Times, the Ice, the Brainwashing, the battles for the planet…but now the thing in the way was Steve, and the choice he was choosing. 

They lived in a time now when two men living together, being in love, even marrying was legal. Not just that, it was normal. Sure, there would be a ton of publicity if Steve ‘came out’… more scrutiny than Bucky himself might be able to comfortably handle. But it would be possible. They'd just saved the world again, for fuck’s sake. There was some leeway in this world.

Except Peggy Carter wasn't in this world, and that was exactly the problem. 

Peggy Carter was the love of Steve’s life. 

And Steve Rogers was the love of Bucky’s.

At the same time, Bucky gets it. He's also lived a life where he knows the bookends, but hasn't read all the books on the shelf. 

There was a life he was supposed to have, events that shaped the world, and he only knows about them because of Wikipedia articles he can read on a phone that looks nothing like a phone is supposed to, seventy years too late. This is a good time to be living, sure… but part of the reason Bucky hasn't been mourning the past (apart from the fact the flickers of tattered, tortured memory he does still have are a real bitch to deal with) is that Steve wasn't in the past.

But Peggy was. Is. And time travel is real.

So when he says goodbye, that he's going to “miss you buddy” (always performing, never giving away secrets they're not ready to share), he has an inkling that he isn't just saying it in case Steve doesn't finish the mission.

He's saying it in case he succeeds.

The five seconds are agony. And when he doesn't reappear, Bucky’s heart clenches, because that means that Steve might be dead, and that’s the last thing he wants. If Bucky can't have his time with Steve, he realizes that he wanted Peggy to have it. 

Steve deserved to be happy. Peggy too. 

There's a particular cruelness that Bucky can't even contemplate in the idea that, once again, neither he or Peggy got to love Steve the way any of them deserved. His knees threaten to buckle. 

And then he sees the figure over on the bench. He knows the slope of those shoulders… knew them before the super soldier serum, knows them well enough now to tell that they carry a lot more years. And he knows that jacket. 

He understands what's happening.

Sam clearly doesn't, so Bucky encourages him to go forward. He hangs back himself. He needs a minute. He needs that time to mourn and grieve and find peace. He needs that time to figure out how to say goodbye. Needs a second to figure out how to forgive. To find closure.

Sam though… he's going to need time too, but Bucky is good at piecing things together. The conversation they’d had all the way back after Steve had rescued him in Austria, where he'd joked that the suit itself, not Steve Rogers, was Captain America… and the conversation they'd had more recently over tumblers of whiskey amid a brief respite where Steve had wondered if superheroes ever get to retire…

“You've got the super strength, Buck. Sam’s a better soldier than I ever was. Either one of you could pick up the shield tomorrow,” he'd said. Bucky had given him a sad, rueful smile and said,

“Not me Steve. You've got to be worthy to pick up that shield. You've got to be healthy and whole, and I'm just…not.” He wasn’t talking about his arm, either. 

It was one of the moments he'd felt okay again though- recognizing that he wasn't alright in the least, but maybe he could be again, if he worked at it. It was why he'd gone to Waukanda, why he was still putting in the work.

He's glad he did that. It's the reason he can stand here now, broken and mended, and not spiral for losing Steve. It’s why he can balance perspectives, and find peace even though his heart is breaking. It's why he can decide that if Steve is passing on the mantle, he'll be there to support Sam, back him up as he figures out who Captain America can be in this century.

He watches the two of them talk, looks on approvingly as Sam takes the shield. The chat for a moment, then Sam steps away. He shoots Bucky a troubled look, but Bucky just smiles at him, clasps his shoulder for a second as they pass, and gives him a nod.

Sam’s shoulders relax a bit, but he still looks at Bucky with an alarming amount of sympathy. Sam may be even more perceptive than Bucky had given him credit for.

He crosses the grass, sits down on the bench beside Steve, looking out at the water. They don't speak for along moment, until Bucky breaks the silence.

“How was she?”

The smile that creeps across Steve’s lips is soft and fond.

“She was good. Real good.”

“I glad.” He even means it.

“I’m sorry, Buck.” Steve's voice sound strange- familiar and unfamiliar all at once, years layered on. Years that Bucky never gets to know him through.

“No, I get it.” Bucky stares out at the water. He's matter-of-fact, and hopes he doesn't sound bitter. He doesn't feel bitter, though it does seem like he should. “You had to play the hand you were originally dealt, with the pinochle partner you were originally set to play with. The two of us… we were a deck of trick cards, all false starts and never meant to build a house with. We were never in the cards. Not really.”

He doesn't look over, but he catches Steve’s tiny nod anyway, feels it pierce him like a piece of shrapnel.

“I know this has to hurt, though.” Steve's tone is reasonable. He really good at reasonable. there are a few more beats of reasonable silence before he starts into an explanation. “It was the last stone I returned. There was a moment, at the base… I didn't have many choices.”

The wind ruffles Steve’s hair. Bucky watches the long strands of his own hair dance out in front of him.

“Steve, I don't blame you for not choosing me. I love you, but sometimes love isn't enough.” It's strange. They haven't said those words to each other often, but it's especially strange to say them now, sitting on a bench and not even touching. It feels particularly vulnerable.

“I've loved you since we were kids, Bucky.” Steve tells him, eyes bright with unshed tears. “I loved you for years before I ever got to say it.”

“You didn't choose me though.” 

Its an observation. Mild, non-judgemental. It seems like it hits Steve all the harder for that. Bucky doesn't let either of them tangle with it for too long. There's no resolution or peace in that. “It's okay. I don't think I would have chosen me either.” Bucky can do reasonable too. Steve winces.

“It wasn't that simple, Buck. There was time travel involved. Things Strange warned me about that I had to try to live by so I didn't mess anything up. But I never forgot you. Never stopped wanting you.”

Bucky looks at him sharply. 

“That doesn't help as much as you seem to think it does.” A flash of anger and grief burns through him, pushing the acceptance out of the way. He knows he can get it back, can feel the calmness on the periphery of his consciousness and knows he has the tools to access it. But just for a second, he doesn't want to.

“What happened to the end of the line, Steve?” He can't keep the burning intensity out of his voice. “We were supposed to be ride or die. Hell, we rode right on past death a couple of times. And then you just…changed your mind?”

Steve reaches out for him, clasps his shoulder.

“It's not the end of the line, Buck. That may not make sense yet, but I promise it's true.”

Bucky chuckles bitterly, even as he gathers the calmness back to himself.

“No, you're right. You're here. We can meet up and play chess in the park, drink coffee and talk about the old days. Just two old men reminiscing about past lives. And in time, I'll get used to it. I always have. I’ll just have to be okay with the fact that people walking past us will think I'm your grandson, or maybe your home healthcare worker. I'll take you any way I can have you, any scraps that you throw me, just like always- going on double dates just so I could take you out to dinner, wrangling the two-man tent so we could steal a moment or two together some nights.” 

He can still remember exploring Steve’s newly buffed body, remember the way that both of them had developed tans across their torsos from all the hours spent working and marching shirtless in the warmer weather, and the way those tans stopped at their waistlines, leaving ass cheeks and muscled legs practically pale enough to glow even in the darkness of the tent. Who would have thought those would be the days he yearned for now, the days when his life was most complete. The unfairness of it all creeps into his voice, and he doesn't choose to battle it back. Who knows if he'll ever really get a chance to say this

“I fought the programming, and I went to Wakanda so that I could shut down the voices that told me I wasn't good enough for you, that I didn't deserve to have you care about me, that I should just murder everyone, or kill myself and save them the trouble. I went because I believed you. I fought at your side, and when I started to disintegrate, my only thought was to get to you. Your name was on my lips. It's been on my lips every time I've died. And still I keep coming back, because for me, you are the end of the line. I don't begrudge you a life with Peggy. I want you to be happy. I'm glad you were. Please believe that I’m glad you found happiness.” He takes a deep breath.

“But Steve, I've always come back. No matter how hard it was. And you might be here right now, but when you had the choice, You. Didn't. Come. Back.”

Steve has the decency to look contrite. Bucky lets the calmness settle back over him.

“So yeah. I'll take whatever moments I have with you, even if they're not enough. Even if they hurt. But right about now, I'm going to need a moment to get myself there. I'm going to help Sam find his feet with the shield, and you're going to have to give an awful lot of explanations to your friends. We're both going to have things to handle for a little bit. And then someday soon, we'll start having those chess games, okay.”

“Okay.” Steve says with a rueful quirk of his lips, and Bucky knows him well enough to know that it's not a promise. Steve isn't intending to stay around, and the fact that Bucky needs time just makes it easier for him.

He stands, and pulls Steve into a hug anyway. That might be the hardest thing so far- Steve in his arms, but with a body that's thinner and frailer with age, a body that's nearing the end of the road. A body that's lived the life Bucky had dared to hope he'd share…but lived it with someone else.

“I love you too.” He whispers in Steve’s ear. And then, soft and fond he whispers,”Jerk.”

Steve starts, gives a puffed snort of laughter, and responds, “Punk.”

They pull back, and Steve brushes a strand of Bucky’s hair out of the way- an intimacy that he normally never allows when other people are around. 

“You'll see me soon, Buck,” he says. His smile is still enigmatic and mysterious when he flashes it over his shoulder, climbing up the slope to talk to Bruce.

Bucky stays down by the water for awhile. He catches Bruce’s gesture asking if he's coming back with them, and shakes his head. He doesn't want to be there, watching Steve explain the new reality to everyone else. Doesn't want to stand there in the rented mountain house that Pepper arranged for them, one room away from where he'd drawn Steve into the corner behind the door and kissed him yesterday, one floor below where he and Steve had lain together in bed last night and slept. Just slept, because he'd thought they had time. Last night for him, at least. Half a century or more for Steve. That's a mind-fuck, alright. He's been brainwashed enough times to know.

He doesn't want to see everyone's faces when they gather in the dining room where they ate breakfast a few hours ago to say their goodbyes to Steve. There have been too many goodbyes already, for people who didn't choose them.

He stays out there for hours, letting his mind run rampant as the wind blows the grass and the tree branches, a constant susurration of sound that soothes him. Finally, as the sun is starting to sink behind the trees and everything seems to pull toward pink and purple and the blue of evening, he gets up, puts his hand in pocket, and finds something already there.

It's a slip of paper, with Steve’a handwriting.

There’s a date, and an address, and beneath that, the words Come Visit. 

Except the date is in the past.

Of all the fucking nerve.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn't do much with the paper, at first. Slips it in his wallet and goes on with life. Keeps his promise to work with Sam, tries to learn what life without Steve could look like.

He lets himself be set up on a date with a girl Pepper recommends. A couple of dates actually, because he realizes when he goes with Sam to meet an old soldier buddy, and Sam excuses himself suddenly after casually mentioning how glad everyone is that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is gone because Derek is one of the best men he ever served with, that this is also a date. He flirts with some baristas too, of varying genders and ways of expressing them, and all this is enough to tell him that he's still got game… he just doesn't want to play.

He checks in with people, tries to hold the tattered remnants of the team who are still on Earth together to some degree. Among other things, that means him and Sam stopping by Clint’s for a training session and dinner occasionally. 

On one of those nights, he and Clint stand on the porch, looking out at the stars and sipping some of Clint’s home brews while Sam lets the kids wrestle all over him and Laura is dishing out homemade ice cream into vintage bowls. Bucky's grandmother had had the same set.

“If you had a way to see her again, spend one last day with her… would you do it?” Bucky asks. 

Clint pauses with the bottle brushing his bottom lip. He resumes his sip and brings the bottle back down beside him. 

“If I could see her again, I would try to save her. Take her place. Keep her from taking mine. And that might be a big enough change that the timeline can't smooth it out. It splits, and a whole alternate universe of people gets destroyed by Thanos. She dies anyway, and I don't return to my own timeline, because I die too, and everything I love in there gets shattered.” He takes another pull of beer, scanning the sky in the vague direction of Vormir. He turns back to the house, settles his hips against the railing, and looks Bucky square in the eye.  
“But if I could go back to some unimportant day that didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things? If I could be sure it wouldn't splinter everything into a new timeline and doom an entire universe? If I could just… bring her here for one last dinner with the family, or visit her when she was recovering from an injury- bring her soup, or beer, or those fancy cookies she liked to so much? I'd do it in a heartbeat.” His eyes shine with unshed tears.  
“I don't know if I could do it though. Take only the time that wouldn't change everything. But maybe it's different, if the person you're there for died a natural death, safe in their bed after a long life.” He cocks his head, eyes squinting for a second, so imperceptible that only a trained assassin or covert operative would even notice it. “Or if they never died at all.”

He claps his hand on Bucky’s shoulder- Bucky can feel the pressure of it, though not the warmth. Clint draws him in to a sort of one-armed hug.

“Come on. Let's get some ice cream.”

A month or so later, it's Wanda. They're both in New York for a meeting that was supposedly important, but turns out to be almost offensively bureaucratic. They all take turns rolling their eyes at each other behind the bureaucrats backs, and when it's over Sam goes off with Scott and Bruce to check out some science thing that Bucky doesn't really care about, so he asks Wanda if she wants to grab a coffee with him. 

Through the magic of smartphones, he finds a place that used to be a coffee warehouse along the strip where he and Steve would scrounge for jobs to help make the rent. It's polished now, different than it used to be, but the old bones and facade are still intact. Changed, but still attached to its roots after all this time. The metaphor isn't lost on him.

They take their coffee to go and walk down to Pebble beach. They skip rocks, putting his super strength and Wakandan bionic arm up against Wanda’s powers, being as discreet as they can. There aren't a lot of people around, so there's space to goof off like this… and to talk.

“How are you doing? Since everything?” He asks. She shrugs.

“One day at a time. Some days are better than others. Some days I wake up from a dream, and roll over and get blindsided by the fact that the bed beside me is empty. Because in the dream, he was just there.” She shakes her head. “Or I'm half asleep, and I realize he's not there as I'm waking up, and I think ’Oh, maybe he's making breakfast’.” Bucky nods. Those moments are achingly familiar. 

“Right. And then you realize, and it hits you that they're not there, they won't ever be. And also that there are no pancakes.” Steve was a terrible cook, but Bucky would gladly have eaten rubbery pancakes again.

It makes Wanda smile for a second. She looks up at the bridge, squinting in the sunlight and tugging back strands of hair that are being whipped across her face by the brisk wind. 

“But the worst moments… the worst moments are when I'm just going through my day like normal, and I think of something I want to tell him, and I start to do that before I remember that he's gone. I actually start to speak before I remember, and have to claw the words back. That's the worst, because everything felt normal, and I forgot. I forgot while I was awake and lucid, and it feels like a wound being ripped open, even while I'm feeling gutted that I forgot, even for a second.” She smiles a bitter smile.

“I do that too.” Bucky says. “I'll think, oh, wait until Steve hears this. And then he isn't here to hear it. No version of him is…not even the one we supposedly got back.” He looks at her, squinting against the sun, say the thing he knows he probably shouldn’t give voice to.

“This might be horrible to say, so you can smack me if you want to, but… sometimes I wish I had what you did. At least Vision didn't choose to leave you. At least he fought to stay, until it came down to a choice between him and half the universe.”

Wanda doesn't slap him, or call him an asshole. She just steps closer and tugs him down by his jacket collar until his face is resting on her shoulder. She wraps her arms around him and he feels something finally crack inside him, tears forming in his eyes. She lets him cry into her shoulder and smooths his hair. When he thinks he's finished shedding tears, he pulls back a bit, so she leads him to a low wall and sits with him in the sunlight m, digging the toe of her boot into the rocks.

“Vision fought. Hard. Not just for himself, but for me. So he could stay with me. So I wouldn't have to kill him.” Bucky nods. He can't say he knew Vision well, but that sounds accurate to what he did know. Wanda continues. “Steve always fought for you the same way. He was passionate and reckless about you in a way that he didn't let himself get for anyone else. So I don't know. Maybe something happened when he went to replace the stones. Maybe we’re missing something. Maybe it wasn't meant to be as cruel as it turned out.” She wraps her arms around his metal one, forearm pressing against his rib cage. “But you'll drive yourself insane if you keep thinking about it that way. You'll never heal. And you deserve to heal.”

He actually believes that these days, which shows how far he's come over time. He contemplates their boots on the stony beach, and the outline of their shadows.

“What would you do if you had a way to have a little more time with Vision?”

Wanda's expression goes distant, but she answers. He had thought for a second she wasn't going to.

“I'd ask for another hour.”

“Just an hour?” Bucky is surprised.

“Not for me. For Shuri. To keep him alive without the stone. Everything else could happen the same way. Thanos. Everyone turning to dust, and coming back. Because if Shuri had another hour, I might have Vis back already.”

“She was that close?” He hadn't realized. Wanda nods.

“That close. She's still working on it too, but it's impossible so far. I'm holding on to a little shred of hope though. Maybe I shouldn't.”

“No.” Bucky disagrees. “No, hope is good. We all deserve a sliver of hope.”

“As long as it's not false hope, maybe we do,” she says, and they lapse into a long silence.

On the idea of hope two days after that, he takes out the slip of paper and drives to the address. It s couple of hours away, through roads and mountains. It’s a quaint, charming house on a quiet street- charming and not the least bit ostentatious. Its the kind of place you could build a life, build a family in peace. He’s pretty sure he knows the people who already did.

A week or so later, he goes to see Strange. There are some things he needs to understand about time travel. 

There’s tea, and a lot of glowing golden graphics dancing in mid air, but as he understands it when doc has finished explaining, the timeline didn't split when Steve went back after the stones, because he was careful not to trigger any changes of a large enough magnitude that the timeline had to splinter. There's a lot of confusing talk about presents and pasts, and how you can't change your own timeline by changing things in the past. It gives him the opportunity to ask the one burning question he has.

“What I'm thinking of… will it work?” 

Strange fixes him with a thoughtful look, his fingers steepled in front of him. 

“It's not ideal to have three separate presents overlap on a timeline, but it's not impossible, or inherently catastrophic unless you change something that's enough of a lynchpin that it splinters the timeline. Don't muck about in your own specific timeline, don't mess with major historical events, and you typically can't actually do much harm.”

“So if someone were to go back and, say, marry somebody in the past…”

Strange nods as he ponders the example.

“If that person were to stay out of major international affairs and incidents, and were very very careful, there wouldn't be much disturbance. 

Yet if someone were to go back and say… kill Hitler before he takes power, that would obviously be of sufficient magnitude to launch an alternate timeline. Which we of course must avoid.” He fixes Bucky with a significant look. “Smaller scale actions could also cause a schism, however. Preventing the Winter Soldier from killing Howard and Maria Stark on a winter night in 1991, for instance. That would splinter the timeline, because it means that Tony Stark doesn't end up wielding the infinity stones.”

“That makes sense to me.” Bucky shifts in his chair. “What I don't get is Steve… Steve Rogers, that is… going back in time, marrying Peggy Carter… how could he do that without splintering the timeline?”

“Carefully.” Strange says, with a little quirk of his lips. Bucky mentally curses men named Steve who like to give enigmatic smiles instead of answers.

“The things that Peggy Carter did, the things she built- they're at least as important as the things I destroyed when I was the Winter Soldier. You're telling me that Steve going back there, inserting himself in her life didn't change any detail of that enough to break time? The people I killed have to stay dead, but it's fine for Peggy’s kids never to have been born?”

“That might indeed cause a splinter in the timeline. If Peggy Carter’s children had never been born.”

“Steve didn't come back through the Quantum realm, though. He was here. In our timeline.”

“He was.”

“So he didn't splinter a timeline, or create an alternate universe.”

“He did not.” Strange doesn't seem to be giving up information easily all of a sudden. It's absolutely maddening, trying to have a conversation with him. It feels like being back at school, struggling through a reading assignment when his eyes don't want to focus. At least Strange doesn't have a ruler.

“So Steve goes back, marries Peggy, Peggy has the same kids we've been aware of in our timeline… that's not possible, unless… are you saying that he didn't splinter the timeline because he was always there?”

Strange raises his eyebrows smugly. It's unattractive. Actually, it's damned attractive, and that makes it substantially more irritating. Bucky has a thousand more questions that he's pretty sure Strange isn't going to answer to his satisfaction, though he can't exactly work out why. He sits back in his chair limply, utterly dumbfounded. The nerve of Steven Fucking Rogers. He thinks about that slip of paper in Steve’s handwriting, burning a hole in his pocket.

“If there were a way to visit him. In the past. If there were a way to get there, I mean. Would it be possible to do it? Without splitting the timeline?” A broad smile breaks out across Strange’s face, and his eyes seem to twinkle.

“Carefully.” He responds, satisfaction evident in his voice. Bucky feels his heart leap.

“You've asked a lot of questions about Captain Rogers.” Strange observes abruptly. “He actually left something here for you, and I think it's the right time for me to make sure you have it.”

He stands and crosses the room, picking up a plain mailing packet from a wooden tray. He offers it to Bucky.

Bucky regards it warily, but can't stop himself from tearing the top open. There's a book inside- book of rules for card games, the kind that can be found in every thrift store and used bookshop in 50 states. There's a page bookmarked with a sticky tab, and finding nothing particularly distinctive on the cover itself, he flips it open to that page, where there's a heading for “Alternative variations” and underneath that Three-Handed Pinochle. 

On a hunch, he flips the book open to the copyright page, and sure enough, it was published the same year as the date on Steve’s note.

He looks up at Strange, and asks for a favor.

“If I'm about to do something that would break things apart, or do irreparable harm… I can trust you to stop me, right?”

Strange regards him for a ponderous moment before responding.

“I would protect the timeline, yes. Even at the expense of your heart. But I have reason to hope it would not come to that.”

“Thank you.”

“Your welcome, my friend,” Strange answers. Bucky hadn't realized they were friends. Apparently surviving the Battle of Earth together is a reasonably solid basis for friendship. It's been a long time since he's had friends, and it startles him to realize how many friends he's made. He's thought of them as Steve’s friends, but Steve left and Bucky stayed, and if anything, he's getting to know most of these people better than he did before. Who would have imagined.

If there's anyone he would have considered a friend throughout his new lease on life this far (apart from Steve), it's Shuri, and incidentally, it's Shuri’s help he needs to face the conundrum before him now. He calls the outreach center in LA, because that's a much easier flight to book if she's with them there, but is informed that she's back home in Wakanda for the next few weeks at least. The woman on the phone offers to transfer his call directly though, and a minute later, he's on a video call with Shuri, who is greeting him warmly from her Wakandan lab.

“White Wolf! It is so good to hear from you! I thought you had forgotten me! Or forgotten about phones. But look! You have an apartment!”

Even though it's approaching nighttime in her part of the world, Shuri brings sunshine into any conversation he has with her. He looks around at the bit of the walk she can see in his screen.

“I do.” He finds himself grinning.

“Excellent! I demand a tour.” And so he flips his camera around and takes her through the apartment. It's a railroad apartment in a renovated tenement that he doesn't want to know how much Pepper authorized for its purchase. There are just four small rooms in a straight shot, connected to one another without much delineation between them, the largest room not even eleven feet wide. But the windows are clean and the walls are painted spotless white, and it feels like more space than he knows what to do with, given the fact that he remembers when a family of 10 or 12 used to squeeze into a four room apartments like this. And he very much counts the bathroom as a room, because his bed had been located next to the bathtub until he was eleven, back when his family had lived in a similar long-demolished tenement building nine blocks away with his cousins and grandparents.  
The building Steve’s family had lived in is two blocks beyond that. He's been tempted to loop by it on his runs when he's in town, see what's still there, but he always thinks better of it. It feels like punishment, and he's really trying not to punish himself for all the wrong things he can't control. He's been checking in with his therapist from Wakanda in video conference sessions, and doing his homework, and working really hard not to let his instincts to shoulder all the blame take over.

So he tours Shuri through the space, and takes pride in her enthusiasm about the efforts he's made- the bright green-and-yellow blanket on his couch, the set of vintage war recruitment posters he'd found at a flea market he was passing through and hung on either side of one of the doorways. The posters are more faded than the memory of when he first saw a set just like them, part of the sea of images and sense of duty and adventure that had made him sign up to ship out for England. The world has had 81 years since those posters were plastered up, but he only has about 10 collective years of memories during that time. It's comforting to have something familiar. 

His therapist would probably suggest he talk through what it means that war is what is comfortable and familiar.

There are pots and pans and dishes in his kitchen- enough to feed more than one person, which was Sam’s doing- both the insistence that he needed them, and the trip to an entirely-too-large and brightly lit store to pick them out and cart them back, since Sam needed to get “something” there anyway- a thoroughly transparent story, because the “something” had turned out to be a three-dollar cheese grater that Sam had found right before the check-out counter, and that didn't seem like the sort of thing that necessitated a trip from D.C. to New York during their limited down time. He hadn't complained, though. He'd appreciated the time together- time that wasn't about dire world-ending problems, or about Falcon, Captain America, or the Winter Soldier. Time that was just about two buddies trying to adjust in an utterly changed world.

Shuri was less impressed by his bedroom- the plain comforter on his bed and the leather heavy bag hanging from reinforced beams.

“Color, you sad man! You need color! That is it, you need help. I am sending you a blanket from here in Wakanda for your bedroom. And throw pillows. And a rug. And some artwork.”

“Okay, okay,” he laughs. “I look forward to receiving the gifts of your expertise.”

“Good.” She tells him with a satisfied smirk. “You are a very lucky man, having a princess of Wakanda willing to give you decoration advice.” She sobers after that though. “Now. What did you really call about?”

“There's something I want to ask you to help me with. And it's probably better if I don't talk about it over the phone. Do you think you could clear me for a visit to Wakanda?”

“Of course I can.” Shuri’s answer is immediate. “When do you want to leave?”

“When's the next flight?”

She types at her keyboard. 

“In fifteen minutes, but you cannot make that one, so if you want to fly commercial… three hours from now, with a layover in France and arriving here tomorrow night. Of course, if you want my jet to pick you up, she is in L.A. and can be ready for you in an hour, and you will be here by sunrise. And you will be doing better for the environment as well.”

Bucky grins, like he usually finds himself doing around Shuri.

“Where should I meet her?”

“JFK. I think she will get there before you do.”

“Challenge accepted. See you soon.” He's already reaching for his bag as he ends the call. It takes him less than 10 minutes to pack and order a Lyft- traveling light and efficient is still engrained in him. He texts Sam from the car, telling him that he's heading to Wakanda for a few days. Sam sends back a string of emojis that include drinks, food, dancing people, and planes.

He makes it to the airport 22 minutes early, but Shuri’s jet still beats him there. It's possible she's made some upgrades. He climbs on board, settles into a seat, and accepts a glass of sparkling water, thinking how very, very different this experience is from the first plan he flew in- a military transport plane where only the pilots had seats and the rest of them had benches and and a few straps to grip on to. It's a hell of a lot faster, too. He sets his watch for Wakanda time to make it easier to adjust to the time zone jump, and even manages to grab enough of a nap that he can ease his body into believing the transition.


	3. Chapter 3

He wakes up in time to watch the sun rising over the mountains of Wakanda as the jet begins its descent. There's something special about this place. It brings him peace. He's been to war here, and disintegrated here, but the memories that come back to him most strongly are the ones of living in the peaceful little hut, learning how to be Bucky Barnes again- a Bucky Barnes who has also been the Winter Soldier and holds those memories, those scars on his soul.

Shuri is there to greet him at the landing pad, opening her arms wide for a gigantic hug. He lifts her up and twirls her around, depositing her back on her feet while she laughs her magical laugh. He's grinning, because she always manages to help him find joy in the world.

“White Wolf!” She exclaims. “It is good to have you back in Wakanda. Now, how urgent is the problem you're having? Do we have time for breakfast?”

“We have time for breakfast,” he promises. “What I want to ask you isn't really urgent. Just…personal.

“Well, now I'm even more curious,” Shuri informs him, wrapping her arm around his arm- in a way, her arm, since she's the one who designed it. she taps it with her finger. “You should let me borrow this back for a few hours while you're here. I have some ideas for upgrades.”

“Sounds good. How have things been here, considering?”

Her smile fades a bit.

“They are good. But it has been bittersweet too. So many good things have happened. But at the same time… five years is quite a bit to have missed. My brother spends his days trying to keep a handle on the present, and catch up on the past all at once. It is a challenge for half the people to have a king who is five years absent, and a challenge to the other half to have their king’a ability to rule questioned, because for them, he was their king all along. My mother spent five years without her children, and welcomes us back with a heart that has had to mourn our deaths. More than once, in my brother’s case. But for us, our mother is only five years older and much sadder. We didn't have a chance to miss her. We were reunited with her after a battle. She was reunited with ghosts. It's a great deal to balance.” Her brow furrows suddenly.

“And someone put my lab in storage. It took me a week and half to get it set up again. Rude.” 

There are people setting up breakfast on the terrace outside of Shuri’s apartments when they arrive- fresh fruit, and coffee, guava juice and banana pancakes. His eyes light up when he sees the spread, and it doesn't escape Shuri’s notice.

“I know how much you love banana pancakes. I’ve got you.”

“I know.” He stops suddenly and pulls her into a hug.

“You've helped me more than just about anyone. More than I deserve.” She has. She pulled the Hydra programming out of his head, gave him a chance to be himself again. And then after that, she helped him figure out who he is now. She'd made him smile and laugh when he was feeling broken, persisted in making him engage with the world. She'd introduced him to banana pancakes, and Wakandan cuisine in general, pushed him to savor experiences again, to taste food, soak in sunshine, practice making decisions again. She'd sternly made him go to his therapy sessions and do the work that felt hopeless, until he started to understand the utility of what he was doing.

She had been a mentor, and more than that, a friend. Early after he came out of deep freeze, she had been walking between buildings with him, finding out what he thought was important in a new arm, and a rainstorm had started, huge drops of rain coming down with increasing rapidity and leaving darker spolotches on their clothes. She'd told him it wasn't far to the door, and he'd said something about how he'd been trained to endure much worse than this.

She had stopped on the stone path, looked at him, and said “Sergeant Barnes. Life is not meant to be endured. It’s meant to be experienced.” She'd thrown her arms wide, tilted her face up toward the sky, thrown back her head, and laughed.

“Come on! Feel the rain on your skin, feel the water running down your face. Appreciate it as part of nature, and do not worry that your clothes are getting wet, or that there is water in your shoes, or how long it will take you to dry your braids! Just give yourself permission to enjoy it!”

He'd grasped what she was getting at, though he didn't have braids to dry, and at her encouragement he cautiously lifted up his own remaining arm and tilted his face back to the sky. They stood there in the deluge minutes after minute, rain pummeling their faces and soaking their clothes, until he started to notice the individual sensations of raindrops on his skin, the weight of his wet clothing and how it clung to his body, the way he could feel it differently if he shifted his weight. His hair clumped together in wet ropes, trailing down his neck and sticking to his face. He could feel the way that the raindrops that landed cool on his skin warmed with his body heat as they trickled down his limbs, dripping off the fingertips of his remaining arm, soaking the shawl he used to cover his stump.

It was overwhelming, the intensity of those sensations when he allowed himself to focus on them, instead of pushing them away with the objective of keeping his body moving, adhering to a mission. It brought him up short to realize that the last time he wasn't operating under the pressure of being mission-ready was before he enlisted. He recalled moments of happiness amid the chaos, sure… but it's a struggle to remember how it feels to experience anything that doesn't have the urgency of life-or-death stakes hanging over it. It's uncomfortable. And because it was uncomfortable, he forced himself to lean into it, letting the downpour wash over him, overwhelm him, until he can feel hot tears on his cheeks alongside the rain, lost in the deluge. 

Afterward, Shuri had brought him to her apartments instead of the lab, sent someone for clothes he could wear, and handed him a towel. They'd sat in what amounted to pajamas, him with his hands wrapped around a mug of rooibos tea and a towel over his shoulders to catch the drips from his hair, and her carefully dabbing her braids dry, and they'd talked- really talked- for hours. After that, they'd been friends, not just a scientist and a conundrum.

Now, he feels her arms tighten around his torso, breathes in the scent of the jojoba oil she uses.

“We talked about this,” she tells him. “You deserve good things. You deserve kindness, and joy, and love. And Banana pancakes.”

“I know. I've been trying to hold onto that lesson. That's actually related to why I’m here.” He lets her go, follows her lead to sit in one of the curved wooden chairs. The royal staff has slipped away, giving them space to talk freely. He sets about dishing out fruit and pancakes onto his plate, drizzling a hint of walnut honey across the top. He should see if Shuri can get some of this honey exported to New York along with the home decor items she promised.

“So.” She pours a mug of coffee for herself. “Kindness, joy, and love. How can I help?” She passes him the carafe of coffee and serves herself some fruit.

“Well… there's actually something I need to tell you first.” He finishes pouring and sets it down again. It's only through the strength of his training that his hands don't tremble. This bit of what he has to explain might be more than a little bit awkward. “In order to ask this favor of you, I need to explain something. About myself. See, uh… I like women. A lot. Romantically, that is.” Shuri is gazing at him expectantly as he stumbles through this explanation, which is sounding even less elegant than he'd envisioned. “But I also…like men. Romantically.”

There's a pause, and then Shuri starts laughing. This was not the reaction he expected.

“I know!” She exclaims, and he just looks at her, puzzled.

“You know?”

“Of course. Bucky Barnes, the walls of my Lab are made of glass. Glass that can be tinted, but still. A woman does not readily forget the sight of you…entangled… with Steve Rogers. Some images are just too beautiful for words.”

He feels a surge of mortification, realizing exactly which incident she’s referring to. It was one of the handful of times that Steve had come to Waukana, before the Infinity Stones. The second time, if he remembers correctly. At least the second time that he'd been awake. 

He'd been more stable, more settled in his own skin than when Steve had come right after he'd woken up. That first time, he'd been uncertain, unsure of himself, unwilling to trust that the brainwashing could be truly undone, that this period of sanity and lucidity would hold. It had felt like almost too much to even hold Steve’s hand as Steve had sat beside his bed and watch him wake up, just the second time he'd slept since going into deep freeze again. He'd been overwhelmed, too scared to believe that a cure really existed, let alone that he deserved to have a shot at it. He hadn't wanted to write a check he couldn't cash, and Steve had understood. He'd held his hand, and talked to him, and even walked around the gardens outside with him, never asking for anything Bucky couldn't give.

That second time though… Shuri had made him a prototype version of a new arm, and Steve had come to help him test it out. That time… that time, he'd practically felt the air between them vibrating whenever they so much as glanced at each other. The attraction between them felt like an almost tangible presence, and there had been a moment where everyone else had left the room for one reason or another, preparing the space where they were going to do the actual tests, and he and Steve had been left alone in the lab. 

They'd been standing a few feet apart, making an effort not to appear distracted, but every time he looked over in Steve’s direction to see Steve stealing a glance back at him, it was like an electric current crackling through his body. They'd stayed in their neutral stances until the last lab tech disappeared around the corner with a load of monitoring equipment before Steve turned to him and breathed his name, but he’d already launched into motion, striding to close the distance between them, wrap his hand around the back of Steve’s neck, and haul him into a kiss.

He just about forgot to breathe, the kiss was so good. Steve’s lips against his, Steve's hand at his hip pulling their bodies closer together- that might just about have been worth waiting 73 years for. They couldn't even stop kissing, one kiss spilling into the next. Steve’s hand tangled in Bucky’s hair, and they ended up plastered together from chest to hip. He remember the way Steve Rogers- Captain Fucking America- had growled, an absolutely filthy, overtly sexual sound, and crowded him up against a work station, his well-muscled thigh slotting between Bucky’s legs and giving him something to press against. They had both moaned when he did so, Steve’s hand tightening in his hair and then releasing, trailing along his neck and down his torso. 

He'd had a flash of trepidation that Steve would reach the place where his arm used to be and balk, or hesitate, but Steve has just trailed his hand across his shoulder, brushed his fingertips along what remained of the limb, and continued down to join his other hand on Bucky’s hips to brace him steady so that Steve could roll his hips and give them both some delicious friction without breaking the workstation— a lesson that they'd memorably learned in a base camp in France in ‘44 when only one of them had had a dose of Super Soldier Serum. Luckily everyone had thought the broken tabletop was the result of a stern disagreement, a fiction supported by the way that Bucky had tersely asked his Captain for “A word…” before closing the flap of the command tent and kissing him breathless while admonishing him for yet another ill-conceived act of reckless bravery.

That alone- that Steve wasn't hung up on the tangible proof of his missing limb, that he still wanted him, no matter how much his body hand changed since the last time they'd touched like this… the confirmation of those hopes had been enough to make him go light-headed and break the kiss, giving Steve the opportunity to put his mouth just underneath his jaw, in the spot that always made Bucky shiver, and scrape his teeth just slightly so that Bucky found himself clinging to Steve’s massive shoulders, moaning “fuck…Steve.”

Steve had growled “Yes.” and Bucky’s legs had threatened to buckle, even as he had shifted his grip to the front of Steve's shirt and seized his lips in a kiss even more urgent than the ones before it. When they pulled apart, panting and a little stunned by the heat between them, Steve leaned their foreheads together biting his kiss-swollen lips.

“We shouldn't do this here.” Steve has murmured, and regretfully, Bucky had had to agree.

“Can you stay tonight?” He'd asked, assuming the answer would be no, but Steve had smiled, one eye squinting up a bit more than the other just like always.

“Sam and Natasha aren't expecting me back for another three days.”

“Stay with me tonight?” He'd wanted Steve beside him, wanted the chance to indulge in carnal delights, but also wanted to fall asleep beside him in a bed where they didn't have to worry about someone bursting in on them, where they could wake up together in the sunlight and stay in bed until they wanted to climb out of it. He'd wanted to show Steve the farm he'd been tending to, prove that he could cultivate life and not just take it. Steve had nodded and kissed him, and tender brush of his lips that had left Bucky even more dazed than the explosive kisses they had just shared. 

Of course it hadn't worked out that way. The tests of the arm had been productive, Shuri had more ideas to implement. Every testing move in the closely-monitored sparring match he and Steve had engaged in had been infused with the joy of knowing that he was getting his life back- even getting more than he'd dared to dream in that former life. 

They'd been sharing notes after the tests, parsing out improvements to try, when Steve had had to take a call. Bucky had watched over T’Challa’s shoulder as Steve’s brow had furrowed, and he'd felt his stomach sink. A few minutes later, he and Steve were sharing a thoroughly unsatisfactory farewell hug at the periphery of the training ground while Steve whispered frustrated apologies in his ear. He'd understood, of course… but it had still been horrible to be left with nothing more than the hurried embraces they had shared in the lab a few hours earlier.

Embraces which Shuri had apparently seen, which made sense, as she'd been the first person to walk back into the lab after they had forced themselves to separate. She'd make damn good spy, because he'd had no idea she'd caught them together, and even though he'd been distracted at the time, that was an impressive performance. Mortified doesn't even begin to cover it.

“Oh God…” he mutters, letting his forehead sink into his hand and his understanding solidifies. Shuri’s amusement doesn't seem to have abated.

“It seemed you did not want many people to know, so I added an extra layer of encryption to the security footage, and removed it from the main server.”

Of course there’s surveillance footage. Of course there is.

“I'm guessing you kept whatever it was between you a secret for many reasons. So I did not pry.”

“I…appreciate that.” He says faintly. After a second, he spears a piece of mango with his fork, but doesn't actually take a bite. Suddenly he wants to tell this story, have somebody hear the real version.


	4. Chapter 4

“It started back when we were kids. He was really small and weak, you know? I protected him from bullies as often as I could, and I think he always felt bad that he couldn't do something similar as payback, to make up for the way that he needed me to land the punches. And I do mean land them. He'd throw them, alright, just couldn't hit for shit. The thing he never got, back then, was that I needed him.” He takes a deep breath and sets the fork down, leans back in his chair with a bit of a sigh.

“I came from a big extended family that lived in close quarters, but we weren't close in the way family’s supposed to be. Steve became my family. He was the center of my world. As far as I was concerned, the whole fucking universe revolved around Steven Grant Rogers, even when he was a too-skinny asthmatic kid who couldn't throw a punch to save his life, but would willingly die trying. “ he smiles fondly at the memory. “I don't know how many times I patched him up after scuffles, how many of my handkerchiefs ended up stained with his blood. When he'd get sick with asthma attacks, I'd make him really strong coffee, because the doctors said that helped sometimes. There wasn't much they could do in those days. They came out with a nebulizer kind of thing, but it was expensive, and so was the medicine for it.” 

He's practically back there again. Brooklyn in the ’30s, back stoops and bustling streets, kids playing stickball and laundry hanging from every line you could find.

“I got a job stocking in a pharmacy after school when I was sixteen. I was supposed to be taking my wages home, but I saved up some, and cut a deal with the pharmacist to buy that nebulizer and a bottle of the medicine. Thing was, the damned thing worked on hand power, and Steve wasn't really strong enough to keep squeezing the bulb on it, especially when he was having one of his spells. So if the coffee didn't work, I'd sit there squeezing the bulb to work it so he could focus on breathing. 

And sure, it was so he could breathe, and I wanted to help him. But part of me just wanted to do it because it was a reason to be physically close to him.” He shakes his head, smiling at what naive kids they had been.

“I used to convince girls to go on double dates with us because I didn't want to choose between spending time with him, and kissing someone at the end of the night. We joked that if no girl wanted to come along and do it, I should teach him how to kiss. Only I wasn't joking. But in those days, boys only kissed girls, and anyone who suggested it was even okay to think otherwise was shunned and reviled. So I didn't do what I wanted to. I didn't kiss him.” He'd also wanted to get down on his knees for Steve, and he hadn't done that either. 

“I kissed two different dames the night before I shipped out to England, made it all the way with one of them, but I went to war never having kissed the person I’d been thinking about since I was thirteen, because he was my best friend, and a man and I couldn't risk it. Spent two years rooming together, sharing a bedroom, and never managed even so much as a kissing tutorial. Nothing physical.” That's not exactly the truth. There had been plenty of nights when they'd lain awake jerking off in their beds only a few feet apart from each other, the sound of Steve’s arrested breaths and uneven breathing enough fodder to fuel his own release. Some things he doesn't want to share though.

“I didn't hear from him again for six months after I deployed. He always said he wrote me to tell me got into the Army, and then again after he was given the super soldier serum, but those never reached me. Got one in the middle there about how he'd captured a flag during training and got to ride back in a car with a pretty girl, but… A lot of ships were sunk and mail was lost. So when we are captured in Azzano and forced into labor for Schmidt as POWs…” he hasn't really talked about the war a whole heck of a lot. Everyone's been focused on more recent traumas, his more recent transgressions. He can't think of another time since he woke up that he's talked about the war like this.

“Is this okay? Me talking about this?” He asks abruptly. 

“Of course.” Shuri says seriously. “I'm honored you would choose tell me.” Her lips twitch mischievously. “Besides. I was always taught to respect the histories of my elders. And since you are nearly a century older than I am…”

“Thanks for reminding me.” He says dryly, but far from irritating him, it just reminds him how remarkable his life has been, that depending how you count, the positively genius young woman across from him is either half his age, or less than 1/5th of it. 

“To be completely serious,” she tells him, “I am happy to hear you talk about these stories. I know some of the facts from the files I studied when I was extracting the coding, but facts in a file are very different from the story, and the memories. Please go on.”

“Okay, then.” He thinks about what was in those files, and picks up his coffee. “So you probably know that I was captured in October of ’43, and Steve came to rescue us in November.”

“Yes. He defied orders to go and find you.”

“Not just me. The 107th was his father’s unit, and he idolized that man, even though he died before Steve was born. He came for all of us. Lit a fire to get us out, and then walked right into it to make sure we made it out alive.

I was in pretty bad shape. I'd had a cold before we were captured, and while we were prisoners, it kept getting worse. The other guys in my cage, they tried to help, but it turned into pneumonia, and we knew that when you got too sick to work, they took you away. None of those guys ever came back. Dugan and the others found a way to cause an equipment malfunction that bought me another two days, but I still collapsed not long after that. As they were dragging me away, I remember being too scared to think about what they were going to do to me, and just thinking about how if this was how Steve felt every time he got sick, how the hell was he going to survive the war, and who the hell had let him enlist?

And then Zola started his experiments, and I lost consciousness. I woke up thinking it was a fever dream, because Steve was there, unstrapping me from the table…but he wasn't my Steve, because this Steve was taller than me, and his shoulders were as broad as an ox. I thought I'd made up this insanely hot Steve, until he picked me up and half-carried me out of there.” He takes a sip of coffee, letting the bitterness and richness of it ground him, feeling the heat of it settle in his belly and chase away the remembered chill of the fortress, the harrowing escape.

“We probably only got out of there because whatever Zola did to me was already taking effect, but we didn't know that at the time. Steve brought us through. He got us out, and I fell for him even further. That night, as we marched, whenever we had to pause for the wounded men to catch their breaths, he draped his battered, torn, scorched jacket around my shoulders to keep me warm, and kept his arm slung around me too. I promised myself that I would find some way to tell him what he meant to me.” He takes another sips of coffee while he lets the memories gather.

“I got my chance in London, where they sent us to recuperate. We were in a pub, and Steve had been talking about forming the Howling Commandos and flirting with Peggy Carter. That was the first time I remember a girl shooting me down to choose Steve instead. I mean, she left us both there in the pub with our jaws on the floor, but Steve definitely had a chance one day, and she'd made it clear that I didn't. I asked him if he wanted to get out of there, and the way he looked at me when he said yes… I had a pretty good idea that Peggy Carter wasn't the only thing on his mind.”

He wonders how much of the rest of this he should tell. 

“So what happened?” Shuri asks, clearly less scandalized by all of this than he is. Times really have changed.

“We started walking. Didn't even have a destination.” A smile ghosts across his lips at the memory, how right it had felt, how exhilarating… and how brashly, stupidly dangerous. “It was dark, because London was still operating under blackout orders so the Nazis couldn't bomb it as easily. I guess… we were walking closer than normal. Our fingers kept brushing, these little signals. At one point, Steve just… curled his pinkie around mine, held the touch long enough that it was obviously intentional and I just… I grabbed his hand and pulled him into a park through a break in where the fencing used to be, because the iron was all being taken to fuel the war effort. I'd…had a couple of amorous encounters with fellow soldiers by that point- they weren't as keen on enforcing the gross indecent laws against soldiers on the front during the war, and the talk was that even in London, between the blackouts and the bombs, police had more important things to arrest people for than getting up to mischief in parks and public toilets. But it was still illegal. You could still be arrested, or court marshaled and even though a lot of people were turning a blind eye, you could never be sure.”

“That’s horrible!” Shuri looks appalled. Outraged. What a difference from the way most people reacted in his own time. Hell, he hadn't even been that outraged living it. It hadn't occurred to him that he could be.

“It was the way things were. I had no illusions, either. I knew that there was no way that something lasting came out of what we were about to do. Those types of encounters, they were always incredible, but there was nothing permanent about them. We all knew that if we made it home we were most likely going marry women, have families, do what was expected, and enjoy that life however much we could. If we made it home. 

It wasn't about romance, you see. There wasn't room for that. Convenience, sure, but not romance. And usually, you never saw the guy again.

But Steve… he hadn't done anything like that before. I don't think he even knew there were unspoken rules. And then, when we were hidden behind an tree, pressed in close together, he didn't do any of the things I expected. Didn't let me do them either. He just… kissed me.

He kissed me, and he changed my entire world.”

He can still remember the wool of Steve's coat under his fingertips on the damp air, the nervous pressure of Steve’s lips against his. Some of the details are fuzzy now, but he remembers how it had been a damn good kiss, if somewhat inexpert, because Steve hadn't had much experience. He was a quick study though, that was for sure. And frankly, it hasn't mattered that Steve wasn't terribly experienced, because he'd been so earnest and Bucky himself had been so eager that it had more than made up for it. 

He was keenly aware that he had never kissed a man before. He'd gone Way Down South in Dixie once, in an effort to return a favor done to him, and swapped cans with a man who was supposed to be an aide to Churchill last time he'd been stationed in London, but being kissed… that was new.

They'd kissed and rutted against each other with such frantic enthusiasm that he'd come right there in his pants, gasping his pleasure against Steve’s lips. Steve has followed a minute later as Bucky tried to get a hand down his trousers, not even able to hold on until Bucky got his belt fully unbuckled before crying out loud enough that Bucky had had to clamp his other hand over Steve’s mouth to muffle his cries so they didn’t get caught.

Even then, after they'd both found release and most encounters would have ended with the straightening of clothes and going about their way, Steve surprised him by kissing him again, gentle and lingering. If it wasn't the stupidest thing in the world, Bucky would have kept kissing him there in the shrubbery until the sun came up, or they were discovered there by someone patrolling the park. 

“So then you and he were officially in a relationship?” Shuri has resumed eating, even though he can't manage it yet.

“Not exactly. It wasn't an option, really. We both knew that there was no future in it. Like I said, we were going to marry women day- we both liked girls, and agreed that we shouldn't make any promises that would infringe upon relationships we might start with women.” He runs his hand through his hair, sweeping it out of his line of vision. 

“And then we just… didn't start any. Steve and Peggy Carter kept dancing around the issue, and me…I still flirted with girls. Danced with them. Kissed a few when I got the chance. But I stopped trying to take it all the way, if you catch my drift. And the whole rest of the week we were in London preparing for the first Howling Commandos mission, we kept sharing these looks. I was terrified that someone was going to figure it out, but I also couldn't stop myself. Every time our fingertips brushed even just passing a file back and forth, it was like a live wire snapping on between us, throwing sparks all over the place. We couldn't show it though. I wanted time alone with him, to make sense of it, keep us from doing anything stupid, but we were always around people.

We were definitely being dumb about it too- standing too close together, brushing shoulders, holding each other's gaze too long… Steve even reached out and held my hand in the Cabinet War Rooms. It was behind a rack full of files, and it was a few seconds at most , but still. It was reckless. People might have asked questions. And the things he'd say…so guileless, still the same scrappy kid from Brooklyn who refused to back down from a challenge.”

“Like what?” Shuri asks.

“Oh… there was a moment a couple days later where he came over like he was consulting me on something in a file. Stood real close to me, head bent over the papers and then asked all quiet so no one else could hear, “Are we good? After… the other night?” 

What was I supposed to say?”

“What did you say?” Shuri is smiling.

“The truth. I said “Yeah buddy, we're good.” And then Brooklyn over there keeps scanning this report, and goes “Would we still be good if I wanted to do it again?”

“And you said yes, right?” Shuri’s eyes are dancing with glee. Bucky reaches for his fork, and pops the mango piece in his mouth, the juice and flavor bursting bright on his tongue as he chews, raising his eyebrows significantly. 

“I did.” He had, once he'd managed to make sure he wasn't going to stumble and crash into the table while distracted by the burning, joyous warmth that suffused him and numbs his limbs. He'd breathed the word like a prayer, and catalogued the minute shifts in stance and expression as Steve relaxed his tensed shoulders.

“Meet me at the pub tonight. I've got an idea.” He'd said after that, and Steve's smile at that… God, he still wasn't over that smile.

“I wanted to do something nice for him. We only had a night or two more in London at the most, and it was raining. Not at all unusual, but I wanted somewhere better than a rainy park, or a public toilet. There weren't a lot of options in Britain then. If a ’bloke’ wanted to take another fellow home for the night, the first thing they did was make up a spare bed and make it look slept in. That way if police arrived for any reason, they didn't end up turning around and arresting the men. Those were the stakes, and we didn’t even have that- we were American GIs sleeping in military quarters, so there wasn't any privacy to be had there.”

“What did you do?”

Bucky takes a bite of Banana pancake and closes his eyes in bliss, lets it remind him that he’s here, in the present, however much his thoughts are in the past. 

“I went to a friend of sorts who I had reason to believe was sympathetic to my situation.”

“How did you know?” Shuri frowns and tilts her head, trying to follow. “If being with someone of the same gender was so taboo back then, how did you know your friend was sympathetic?” 

Bucky looks up from his pancakes and meets her gaze levelly.

“Firsthand experience.”

Shuri laughs delightedly. “Oh my goodness! You were a player! I totally knew you were a player.”

“Maybe a little bit,” he allows. “David was one of Churchill’s private secretaries. He was the only person I knew who might be able to help me out, and wouldn't report me for asking. Still, he wasn't expecting for me to turn up at No. 10 Downing Street. I think he just about had a heart attack when I did.”

He'd been nervous himself. Not even sure if David would take the appointment. And in fact, David had blanched when he saw Bucky waiting beside the typist’s desk.

“Do you have a moment, Mr. Green?” Bucky had asked. The panicked hesitation before David smiled would have been imperceptible if you weren't looking for it. 

“For you, Sergeant Barnes? I can find a moment or two. How are things on the front?”

“Rather exciting, actually. Got to be a Prisoner of War for a month or so there.” He’d said, doing his best imitation of American bravado and English false cheer. David had looked at him, startled.

“You were captured?”

“In Azanno. Had a luxury stay in a castle ‘round about those parts until Captain Rogers came and tossed us the keys.”

“Ah, yes. Your Captain America. That must have been harrowing.” He'd been going to play it off lightly, but something in David's eyes suggested that the other man wasn't just talking based in theory, so he'd just nodded his acknowledgment.

“Well then,” David had said, “would you like to sit down?” He'd gestured to a desk in an office where another of Churchill’s secretaries already sat at a second desk, conducting an interview with a man in a suit. 

“I've been sitting too much here in London.” He'd said with a too-bright American smile and a subtle shake of his head as he held David’s gaze. David has gotten the hint.

“A stroll it is then. Let me collect my umbrella.”

Outside, umbrellas raised against the weakly spitting rain, he'd broached the subject he'd come to take about.

“I need advice, David. And you're the only person I could think of who might know. Let's say For the sake of this scenarios that there are a couple of American GIs, stationed here in London, and they're looking to find a place to spend a few hours together for a bit of, shall we say, unconventional camaraderie… where might they safely find a place to do that?” David had turned to him, disbelieving.

“Are you serious, Barnes? You came into Downing Street to ask me to help you plan a date? A date that could get you court-marshaled? Of all the idiotic…”

“It's not just a date.” Bucky had interrupted him, all false cheer and coyness gone from his voice. He'd snapped over to earnest sobriety. “This mission were about to go on… it's the bravery-that's-really-stupidity type. There's a good chance we don't make it back from this one. It's that serious. And I say that having almost died last week.”

“So you want to feel alive. I get that. But coming into my place of work, where the Prime Minister resides, to ask me for advice about breaking the law is-”

“I love him,” Bucky cut him off.

David regarded him warily, and they stepped aside to let a man with a briefcase hasten by in the opposite direction. Once he was out of earshot, Bucky had continued.

“I love him. I've loved him for a long time, and I didn't know he…Look.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “If either one of us don't make it back, I want us to have had one night together. One night, in a bed, where we can take our time, and not worry that we're going to get caught. Even just a couple of hours. And you're the only person I can think of who might know a place we can go.”

David had sighed, and nodded and reluctantly rattled off an intersection.

“The Bell and Chime. It's a pub downstairs, but the woman who owns it runs a rooming house too. Ask for Molly to get you a room, and they'll find you something for a few hours. There's girls who live there full-time too- mostly women doing professional work while men are away at war. For a bit of pocket change, they'll pretend to be your date for the night if Scotland Yard suddenly sees fit to raid the place. Hasn't happened yet, but the insurance of it can be a relief, and the extra funds help the girls get by.”

“Thank you.” Bucky had said, meaning it intensely.

“Good luck to you, Barnes,” David had responded. “And try to make it home from this mission. It if you don't, know that England and her allies are grateful for your service.” They'd shaken hands, and Bucky didn't think he'd imagined that David had held the handshake just an extra second or two. 

They'd never seen each other again.


	5. Chapter 5

That night, his heart had been hammering as he walked up to the bar at the Bell and Chime to ask for Molly and gotten a nod from the bartender. He paid for their drinks along with the fee for the room and sat for a few minutes until a curvy dark-haired girl that Bucky would happily have tried to coax a kiss out of under other circumstances came by their table, introduced herself as Gert, and told them to follow her. Steve's expression was definitely puzzled, and became more so as she led them outside, in another door a few feet away, and up a staircase, reaching a pinnacle of confusion when Bucky leaned in to brush a kiss across her cheek and press a couple of coins into her hand with an appreciative ’Thanks, Doll.’

She'd smiled, told them to enjoy themselves, noted that the sheets were freshly washed, and pushed open the door.

Inside had been two metal-frame single beds, neatly made up with sheets and a counterpane, and a washstand in the corner. Steve's eyes had gone wide in astonishment.

With the door closed behind them and Gert having ducked into the room across the hall, he'd turned to Steve, more nervous than the first time he'd had a chance to put his hand up a girl’s skirt after a dance.

“We don't have to do anything you don't want to. I'm not… trying to pressure you or anything. I just wanted somewhere where nobody was going to come along and interrupt, where we don't have to worry so much about getting caught.”

“You really are alright with this,” Steve had whispered, disbelieving. Even with how well Bucky knew him, he hadn't been sure if Steve’s astonishment was more wonderment or revulsion. Fortunately, Steve has cleared that up quickly by closing the small distance between them and laying a kiss on him, bowing him back a little with the force of it.

“God, yes.” He’d responded when his lips were free again, a minute or so later.

“How long?” Steve had asked, and it had taken him a second to follow, his head swimming with the heady force of his arousal. He'd searched Steve’s eyes, and that close, he'd seen the hurt and fear and the defiant bracing for impact that was so very much a part of the Steve he had always known, and he realized all of a sudden what Steve was really asking- is this just a new infatuation, something he's toying around with because Steve is suddenly muscled and broad, and the appeal lies in the effects of the serum and the daringness of the escapade? Does Bucky want Steve, or is it just Captain America he wants?

“Always.” He had breathed. “I just didn't think it was possible. I thought you'd just punch me, and walk away, and you'd be right to do it.” He’d licked his lips, heart pounding. “And that would hurt worse than any other hit any other person could dole out.”

Steve has kissed him then- slow and deep until he was overwhelmed with it. It was breathtakingly slow, the way that they touched each other that night, fingers tangling together, Steve nudging him back against the wall and pressing his hands there too, fingers trailing across Bucky’s palms and along his wrists.

It was the best kind of excruciating. There was time. Time for every kiss to linger and spill into another, time to let his head fall back against the wall as Steve trailed kisses just beneath his jawline and down his throat, yanking his tie loose to gain better access. There was a spot that Steve discovered, near the hinge of his jaw, that made Bucky's limbs just cease to work, made his brain go all fuzzy with the pleasure of it. Steve exploited it until Bucky had to grasp Steve’s jaw and kiss him just to come back to himself. While he was at it, he decided to give Steve a taste of his own medicine, savoring the faint scent of soap and the hint of salt of Steve’s skin as he set his teeth against Steve’s throat and then sucked the sting away. Steve’s hands clenched into fists and he swayed forward, moaning Bucky’s name.

“Fuck, Steve...” he whispered at the sound, savoring the way it had gone right to his cock. “Want to see you.”

“I'm right here,” Steve had murmured. “Not going anywhere.”

“I meant I want to see you out of uniform, Soldier.” Bucky had started working at the buckle of Steve’s jacket, and Steve undid the buttons. They'd stripped him of it quickly, and then Bucky had gone to work on the buttons of the gabardine wool shirt. He refused to be distracted from his mission, even when Steve kissed him again. Steve's uniform was nearly the same as his own- he could undo these buttons in his sleep.

Not that he wanted his eyes closed for this. He wanted to savor every moment. Steve's shirt jointed his uniform coat on the floor a moment later, and now it was just the undershirt that had to be dealt with, the thin cotton really not enough to conceal all of those glorious new muscles that strained against it. They rippled under his touch, every place he let his hands run across Steve’s torso. It was incredible, the transformation. Slightly less incredible than the fact that his hands were on Steve in the first place, that he was now intimately familiar with the shape of Steve’s lips. 

He let Steve divest him of his own jacket and wool shirt, let Steve draw the undershirt up over his head and drop it on the floor as they kiss again. He lets his hands slide over the planes of Steve’s abs and chest, rucking up the fabric of Steve’s undershirt as he does so, just wanting to feel the heat of Steve’s skin under his palms. His mouth had gone dry when Steve just pulled the shirt over his own head and tossed it aside, his arm sliding around Bucky's waist and pulling them together, touching skin to skin.

“What do you want?” He’d asked, meeting Steve's eyes. Steve had blushed and ducked his head.

“I… don't know. I've never…”

“Never done this, or never done this with another man?” Bucky remembers clarifying, and Steve responding,

“Both.”

It had stopped him dead in his tracks to realize the importance of that. He'd smiled at Steve though, and told him, “Just means you've got a lot to enjoy.” Then he’d asked, “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you.” Steve had told him. The words had thrilled him. 

“Good.” He’d gone to his knees then, reached his hands up to Steve's waistband to undo the first button, and then, keeping his eyes locked on Steve's, he'd slowly let each of the next five buttons pop through the button holes, revealing Steve's underwear and three more buttons as well, which he undid and folded aside so he could take Steve in his mouth, and be rewarded with a string of staggered gasps and expletives.

Super Soldier Stamina or not, Bucky hadn't expected Steve to last long in that circumstance. He certainly hadn't, the first time someone had put their mouth on him. He had been proven right less than a minute later when Steve had spent in his mouth, arms braced against the wall and his cries muffled against his own straining bicep, looking down at Bucky with a beautifully wrecked expression.

Bucky had been supremely pleased with himself, grinning as he rose to his feet only to have Steve haul him into another kiss, both of them moaning at the realization that Steve was tasting himself on Bucky’s tongue. 

“I think I've been missing out.” Steve had panted.

“You have no idea.” Bucky had agreed.

“So show me.” Steve invited, nodding to the beds. As a precaution, he'd rumpled the counterpane on the further bed to make it look slept in, then let Steve lead him to sit on the other bed while Steve knelt to loosen the laces on Bucky’s service shoes, allowing him to toe them off before they swapped positions and Bucky had found himself kneeling on Steve’s lap, leaning down to kiss him while Steve's incredibly strong arms wrapped around his waist.

As it turned out, the increased stamina aspects of the serum made for a remarkably short refraction period which they had set about testing until they had collapsed nude, utterly sated, and with a newfound appreciation for several different sex acts. 

There had been so many firsts that night, memories he's grateful to still have after everything- Steve's naked form stretched out beneath him in the warm light of the little lamp on the table across the room, the clink of their dog tags as they kissed and touched, the squeak of the bed beneath them when they moved with each other, Steve's expressions as Bucky had opened him up with the aid of the little tube of lube he'd brought with him, fingers slicked and pressing into Steve’s body; the guffaw of laughter when Bucky's nervous and lube-slicked fingers had dropped the little cardboard box of Trojans, and one of the paper-banded rubbers had bounced right off of Steve's abs and onto the floor; the way Steve had melted into the kiss Bucky gave him to curb that laughter; the open-mouthed expressions of pleasure as Bucky had pushed into him after almost an hour of careful preparation; the whispered cries Steve had given as he'd picked up the pace, thrusting in and out of him first so slow that Steve was begging him for more, then fast enough that neither one of them could form coherent words ; Steve’s sated, exhausted, deeply contented expression when Bucky hauled the counterpane over them as they lay squeezed in a tangle of limbs on the tiny bed that would normally have been uncomfortably small for one of them alone; Steve's sleeping, contented face when Bucky woke just before dawn and could take a moment to watch Steve completely at peace; the sleepy smile when Steve he'd woken a moment later and drew him down into a kiss, letting him know that as insane and impossible as it was, there was more between them than just this one night.

They'd washed together at the washstand, Bucky leaning over Steve's shoulder to kiss his neck and watch their reflections in the tiny mirror. It hadn't even been his intention to start something, but that had ended with him backed up against the wall, bracing his hands against the sloping ceiling near the window, and Steve's hand encircling his cock, working him to completion before they switched roles and then had to wash again, replacing the scent of sweat and semen with that of soap.

They had both dressed and nearly finished stripping the beds with military efficiency when Gert knocked at the door to tell them it was time to leave. He'd kissed her hand like she was royalty as they left, thanking her for her assistance, and Steve even kissed her cheek as he came out of the room.

Downstairs, there had been a few people at the Bell and Chime, and Steve had ordered them coffee and a bit of breakfast, splurging for an egg apiece alongside their toast. Bucky hadn't argued- the pub felt like too much of the world intruding on what they'd shared, and he wasn't particularly eager to be back finalizing the plans for their mission yet.

Gert had come downstairs a few minutes later, and she let Steve buy her a coffee as well and agreed to sit with them a moment, though she grimaced as she drank it, and said that it wasn't their accents or uniforms that gave away the fact they were Americans, but the fact that they actually liked the coffee. 

“But then, it's not rationed!” She had conceded with a grin and lifted the cup in a little cheers motion, which they mimicked. 

Looking around to make sure they couldn't be overheard, Bucky had leaned in and asked her,

“Why is it you do this, Gert? Help out fellas like us in a pinch?”

“Oh,” Gert had responded, a smile rounding out her cheeks, “My older brother. He's…like that as well. His best friend from University isn't really his best friend, if you catch my meaning. I happened to discover that by accidentally walking in on them in the garden shed when I was seventeen, and since Freddie's always been my favorite brother, I listened when he told me that he rather loved Roger, and hoped I wouldn't think poorly of him for it. I spent some time with them that summer, and Mother thought I'd taken a fancy to Roger instead. That's a fiction that serves well enough, so we kept up for nearly two years, until the war broke out and they both signed up to serve.”

She tears a piece off her toast.

“I wanted to do war work as well, so I insisted on moving to London and becoming a conductor on the Underground. Freddie told me that if I was going to be living on my own, I should at least be somewhere where the boys weren't likely to want me to give up anything I wasn't willing to, and told me about the rooming house here. I been living here almost 3 years now, finding ways to do my part.

I just think...love is special, in all its forms. Even if the whole world doesn’t care to see it see it.”

“That's beautiful,” Steve remarked. “How are… How are Freddie and Roger doing?” He sounded hopeful. Gert had smiled sadly. 

“Freddie’s alright. He's an officer stationed in Morocco. Roger… was shot down behind enemy lines two months ago. There's been no word, so at this point he’s officially listed as missing, presumed dead.”

Steve looked stricken. “I'm so sorry,” he'd said, reaching across the table to clasp her hand and Gert had seemed grateful if the gesture.

“I think we've all faced terrible losses,” she had said.

Bucky thought of all the men he'd seen die so far, the men who had gone on missions and never returned. Steve though… Steve had only been through a couple of battles at most. He'd seen men die, been through the hell of battle, but he'd still been new to it- the weariness and constancy of loss hadn't settled over his shoulders yet. Bucky had envied him that. But he'd also caught the way that Steve's eyes had flicker to him, guessed that Steve was recalling how close Bucky had come to dying behind enemy lines himself as a prisoner of war.

He remembers fervently hoping that neither of them ended up like Freddie, left to live while their best friend and lover had been killed. It's a good thing he couldn't predict the future.

Now, sitting in a future he'd never dreamed of, he takes a long sip of coffee— a much richer, more flavorful brew than what what had been available during the war, or even what he had made for Steve when they were teenagers— and polished off more pancakes.

He tells Shuri about the Bell and Chime, and Gert, and having one night with a proper bed, though he leaves out the particular details of that night.

“And after that?” Shuri asks.

“After that, we were the Howling Commandos. For just over a year, we carried out missions all across Europe. We took down Nazis and Hydra agents, planned missions and executed them. Spent most of that year carrying our lives on our backs, sneaking into and out of enemy territory, with brief respites at base camps around the continent.”

“So then you didn't have a chance for anything more.” Shuri looks disappointed.

Bucky looks at her innocently, which is an expression that he's aware always looks a bit devilish on him in the best of circumstances. 

“You know the best thing about the most portable tents they gave us back in the Army?” He asks.

“What was the best thing?” He loves how Shuri is willing to play along.

“Two-man pup tents, made out of shelter sides. Each man had to carry his half, along with the collapsible pole, and they could be rigged as a single lean-to shelter if you needed. But to make it a tent, all you had to do was button the two sides together, set it up and crawl inside. Made for pretty tight quarters, but it was considerably less of a hardship if you didn't mind touching your tent partner. And if you have to huddle together for warmth, who could blame some guys for sharing blankets?”

He could recall several chilled, snow dusted mornings when the absolute last thing he'd wanted was to untangle himself from Steve’s limbs and brave the cold, even for a mug of hot coffee with the rest of the Commandos. He'd been thankful for wool sweaters and undershirts then, but more thankful for the fact that Steve was now a veritable furnace, and that when they slept spooned together under the wool blankets, he could press back against Steve’s broad chest, sink into the warmth of his arms, and feel some of the chill that made his bones ache melt away from his spine. 

Conversely, there had been so many hot nights during the summer months where they'd stripped of their shirts and lain there sweating in the summer heat, the only part of them that touched being their hands, finger tangled together or curled against each other's wrists… unless of course, the heat had made them stir-crazy and the only relief from that was to suck each other off, always careful to be quiet so as not to alert the others. 

Bucky was pretty sure the other Commandos knew, or at least suspected. But they never looked at either of them askance, and that had meant the world to him. He'd never been sure, but he'd thought that Gabe and Jacques might have had a similar understanding to what he and Steve had. Nobody had ever said anything judgmental about that, either.

“We kept on like that through all of ‘44, and the bit of ‘45 that I got to see, though most of January was spent on base, so…”

“Did that make a difference?” Shuri looks intrigued.

“Fewer moments of near-certain death, bigger tents, more pomp and circumstance, more people around to ask questions… there were trade-offs. In general, it was a lot harder to find a moment alone together. 

And of course, Peggy was there. And when Peggy was there, Steve was hopelessly infatuated. Always tripping over himself to be smooth, to say the right thing, to impress her. I don't think he ever quite got that she was already impressed by him, and that she really liked Steve Rogers a whole heck of a lot better than she liked Captain America.”

“Were you jealous of her?” Shuri asks curiously. It's a reasonable question, and he considers it carefully.

“No, not really. I always figured that Steve would get married one day, that I would too. That the physical thing between us would have to be shelved then, because while I had no objection to deceiving the US Army about the nature of our relationship, neither one of us would be alright deceiving a woman and running around behind her back, especially when we had sworn vows about it. That kind of secrecy would have poisoned what we had anyway. 

And if Steve had to go on and marry a woman, especially because he had such a high profile… Peggy Carter was one hell of a woman. He adored her, too. For me, I couldn't really bring myself to get up a distaste for someone Steve loved. It felt like a betrayal of him, in some ways. Like only loving parts of him.”

He pushes his a piece of pancake contemplative lay through the honey with his fork, lets himself think back to have he had felt back then.

“I honestly pitied her sometimes too - she was such an incredible woman, a first-rate leader and officer, I just couldn't imagine Peggy Carter giving up everything she'd built during the war and going on to bake pies and darn socks, and smile on the elbow of Captain America. We talked around it a few times, and I think she was very much aware how much she'd have to give up to keep Steve in her life. It made me respect her to realize how much she wanted to say no to all of that, but still thought about saying ’yes’ to him. She was one of the few people who saw Steve for who he was, and not just the suit.

I understood a little of what she was facing, too. I knew what it was to be the Sergeant in his shadow. Go from being seen for my own feats and flaws to being seen as Captain America’s best friend. I don't think he realized though. Not until after she died, and he looked at history and saw that Peggy Carter only got to do all the things that she did, only had the chance to change the world the way she did because she was herself, and wasn't shoehorned into the role of Captain America’s wife.”

He looks to Shuri then.

“We talked about it one time, over at the farm. He said maybe it was a good thing that he hadn't been around to be with her, because being with him wouldn't have given her enough chance to shine. 

I told him she might have been better off without Captain America in her life, but that there's no way she was better off without Steve Rogers.”

“That's sweet.” Shuri says.

He shakes his head.

“It was true. She was incredible. You know, she didn't like me very much at first, turned me down flat when I asked her to dance?” 

Shuri shakes her head.

“But after the Howling Commandos were formed, she and I got to pal around a bit more. She'd come join us playing cards, or trading stories sometimes. Mostly to spend some time with Steve, because the two of them couldn't spend more than a couple minutes alone together without it becoming gossip or a scandal, and tongues didn't wag so much if there were other folks around. But the more I got to know her, the more I liked her. It almost took away the sting of knowing that I was going to have to cede my secret claim someday- to her if she'd have him. I even told her something to that effect- that I though she and Steve would be good together.

“She used you to flirt with Steve!” Shuri is obviously amused. “Also, do you know that when you talk about that time, your voice changes?”

“Does it?” He hadn't realized.

“Yes. You use different words, and the cadence of your speech even goes a bit different. It's fascinating.” She tilts her head consideringly.

“I guess maybe it does,” he muses. “Side effect of being over 100 years old, I guess. And because I'm getting to visit old memories. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“I'm genuinely happy to listen.”

“Not just that, though.” He shifts forward in his chair, gestures in front of himself. “The reason I can sit here and talk about these memories- the reason I can even go back and dive into them… it's because you pulled the Hydra programming out of my head. The whole time I was under with them, I didn't remember Steve, or Peggy, or my life before them. I didn't remember the war, or the men who fought and died beside me. Getting all that back… it matters. Even when it hurts. And it took me a long time to appreciate what a scientific challenge that must have been, instead of just being overwhelmed. Even now… it's like opening boxes in an attic, and finding things that were packed away, but are still in mint condition. Like the scent of the Army soap Steve used, or the way that when Peggy played cards, the way you could tell she had a winning hand was when she got a little quiet, didn’t smirk so much. Or the way that they'd talk together and look like the whole world had dropped away, but Steve would still meet my eye and look a little sad, but I'd always smile for him so he knew I'd be okay.” He shakes himself out of the reverie.

“And all that is down to you. Younger than I was when I joined the Army, and you realized how important it would be to make sure I could connect back to them.”

“Well, obviously.”

“Not obviously,” He counters. “I talked to T’Challa. It would have been easier to wipe the programming and leave me a blank slate, just let whatever survived the wipes filter through over time. Let me rebuild my past bit by bit, like I was doing in Bucharest. He told me you insisted on doing it right, though.”

She leans in over her elbows on the table, expression intent. 

“Everything is worth trying to do right. Or at least doing your best. That's why I love science and technology, but art and society too. The best is always getting better, because we are always working to make it better.” She gestures around her. 

“Your best is pretty damn good,” he observes.

“I am pretty damn good,” she counters.

“You are, in every sense of the word. Being a veteran of a couple different wars now that were fought because there wasn't an over-abundance of good in the world- or in the universe for that matter- take it from me that that's a pretty rare and important quality. Protect it fiercely, if you can.”

“I will try.” She assures him too quickly to have thought much about it, though he hopes that advice stays with her if she ever needs it. “In any case. Your past. You were in love with Captain America, so was Peggy Carter, they flirted in front of you, but you didn't get jealous.”

“Oh, I got jealous. I just didn't let myself dislike her for the fact that people saw her as someone Steve was allowed to love, or get mad at Steve for having feelings for her and for carrying a picture of her in his compass. And I was in love with Steve Rogers, not Captain America. Peggy was too, as far as I could tell. I liked that about her. She was one of the few people over there who had known Steve before the Serum, and liked him then. I respected that about her. 

Turned out to be a moot point though, because at the end of January of ’45, I ended up taking a high dive into the Danube, and then Steve went into the ice in the Atlantic at the beginning of March. Nobody got a happy ending.” 

He pauses and stares out over the balcony railing, taking in the sight of Wakanda spread out around them.

“Except in some ways, we almost did. Steve survived. I didn't die. Peggy lived a full life and got to see Steve again before she passed. Steve helped me come back. And then Steve went back in time to replace the stones, and it turns out that he and Peggy actually got to get the happy ending after all. But me…”

“You were left behind in a future you never meant to see,” Shuri surmises. 

“Exactly.” His voice is flat. “He went, and I stayed here. And sometimes I think that maybe that's fitting. I killed a lot of people, hurt a lot more beyond that. Maybe this is part of my atonement.”

Shuri frowns.

“The Winter Soldier killed a lot of people,” she counters firmly. “The Winter Soldier hurt people. The Winter Soldier was a construct formatted and designed to co-opt the neural pathways of its host, layered with torture, hypnosis, and behavioral training designed to be impossible to crack, and you broke through it on your own.”

“Not on my own,” Bucky disagrees. “Because of Steve.”

“Maybe because of how you felt about him, but not because of him. He was the catalyst. You were the engine. Don't forget that I've spent plenty of time messing around in that head of yours. I know what I'm talking about.”

“Because of how I felt about Steve, then.” He concedes. “Even before I remembered him.” The Winter Soldier hadn't had any memories of Bucky Barnes. Not at first. And the Winter Soldier hadn't known love or lust or attraction. He had no use for those things. He had no use for sexuality, or desire. No language for love apart from describing the links and weaknesses of the targets he needed to exploit. Anything that wasn't useful to completing a mission, that wasn't directly tied to the efficiency of the kill had been stripped away, had ceased to matter. Had never mattered, as far as his memories existed.

That had been a particular mindfuck, once Steve had forced the cracks to form in the prison walls Hydra had constructed around him…trying to comprehend what any of those things meant. They had all come back to Steve, though.

He remembered standing in the exhibit at the museum, looking at images of himself and Steve- standing shoulder to shoulder, planning, laughing, smiling, marching…and feeling his world shift on its axis.

It was that last one that had made the most sense to him, initially. Everything else had been too foreign, too unfamiliar to process in those first weeks… But the Soldier understood battle and marching and loyalty, and it was obvious to him that the man who shared the Soldier’s face, this Bucky Barnes, had been loyal to Captain America. It was enough to make the Soldier want to comprehend, to remember. And so he'd gone on the run, turning his back on Hydra, which had already betrayed him, and everything related to Steve Rogers, because he didn't trust how much he viscerally wanted to believe the man he could barely remember.

Slowly, haltingly, things started coming back to him. Snippets of memory, of another life. He had re-learned what desire felt like, the bodily sensations that accompanied it. The first time he remembered having a physically pleasant experience, once he had been out from under Hydra control and gotten himself to Europe so they'd be looking for him on the wrong continent while he was in a country they'd never sent him to (at least as far as he could trust his memories), was drinking a cup of coffee in a cafe in attempt to blend in and gather information about his surroundings.

He'd stolen someone's money clip- he'd almost stolen a girl's purse while she was distracted with her baby, but he'd felt an unsettling flash of guilt at the idea and shifted his focus to a man who was a more difficult target but seemed like he could better weather the loss- and bought the coffee in a cafe. It seemed like something he wanted, even though he couldn't remember having it before.

He'd taken that first sip, felt it warming him, and felt like rusty blast-doors were creaking open inside. He'd suddenly remembered porcelain mugs held while sitting on a bed, ceramic mugs in a diner, metal mugs in a sunny forest clearing…all of them with Steve around, though very little of the memory was clear beyond having the mugs in his own two human hands. More important than that though, was that he liked it. Whatever combination of Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes has existed inside of him at that moment had experienced something, and liked it. It was an action that wasn't strictly about utility, and its felt transgressive, to experience something mundane and enjoy it.

Intimate definitions of pleasure had been a little bit more disconcerting. His body had become unaccustomed to processing much of anything beyond pain and endurance. He didn't see the appeal in even trying to seek out pleasurable touch. And then, a couple of months after he'd gone on the run, after he'd found a safehouse and started keeping a log of all the memories from before that had started to return, he'd started waking up in a sweat, panting because his body was responding to memories he couldn't quite identify yet- splintered, erotic images that made his skin feel like it was buzzing and had him writhing on the mattress, his hand creeping toward the physical indication of that arousal.

Problem was, his hand was a Hydra-designed assassin’s tool, rather than the flesh-and-blood version he kept experiencing in his memories, and it was calibrated for combat, not carnal acts… even if the only body involved was his own. 

It took him several attempts to re-learn how to touch himself to elicit pleasure, to sustain it, to bring himself to completion without stuttering halts. The first few times his metal arm had felt so foreign to this application and his other arm had felt like trying to things disconcertingly backward that he'd ended up just getting frustrated and rutting into the mattress until his release flooded his underwear and he could fall back into exhausted sleep. Eventually, he got accustomed to his right hand, and learned how to make the diminished feedback the left arm work for him, almost as though he were being touched by a stranger… deeply preferable to inviting the touch of another person, because he couldn't be remotely certain that he wouldn't end up murdering any person he tried to be intimate with. 

Then there had been the emotional drop and echoing emptiness that followed the release, which had been frustrating because the man he had been didn't seem to have had an over-abundance of shame, and the Soldier hadn't even required instructions in that regard. He figured that maybe it had to do with relinquishing control, or with the programming he'd been under. Was afraid he was still under. 

More disconcerting that waking up achingly hard to half-comprehensible snippets of memories of sex acts with a variety of bodies was when the memories came more complete- complete enough that he felt the echoes of emotion… and so many of them were about Steve. One of the first to come back was of Younger Steve, thin enough to count each one of his ribs, that he woke up wanting to protect, but also felt the remembered ache of wanting to kiss him so damn much that he hadn't been able to think of anything else. His heart clenched, his breathing felt labored, and it was all just the memory. 

He could remember more things connected to that day, too. It had been early spring, after his birthday. Steve had been jumped by some guys while he was waiting for Bucky to finish at the gym, kept them at bay long enough with the moves Bucky had taught him that they only got one good lick in across his cheekbone before Bucky had gotten there to set them straight. 

Steve had let Bucky lead him back into the gym to clean up, putting a cool cloth against his face and treating a scrape on his wrist with Mercurochrome. He could recall the tender way he'd touched Steve, the way he'd tried to remind himself that these touches were solicitous, friendly, and not something more, even if he kept noticing the pinkness of Steve's lips and the smoothness of his skin where he held Steve’s forearm steady to wipe the orange-red liquid across the scrape, careful not to stain his own fingers before eventually wrapping his own knuckles in a cold cloth.

Steve had let Bucky walk him home, invited him in. He'd helped Sarah make dinner, but declined to stay because he could see there was barely enough for two mouths, let alone three…and also because he couldn't stop looking at Steve's mouth, and he didn't think he could keep from saying or doing something stupid, the way he already kept letting himself slip to glance at those lips, or the red spot on his cheek, or his narrow fingers, or wondering reckless things like what the curve of Steve's neck smelled like. The things he’d been tamping down were too close to the surface that night, and it was dangerously tempting to forget to rein them in. 

He went walking instead, appreciating that it was a bit warmer than usual for the time of year, and the snow was entirely melted. He hadn’t wanted to go home, hadn't wanted to endure the close, crowded rooms where he felt less and less at home with his family. He thought about trying to find a girl, take her out on the town, but he was low on funds and it was already after eight- not exactly late, but late enough that it was hard to ask a girl from the neighborhood out unexpectedly without implying you thought she was a certain type of dame.

He was also keyed up, full of restless energy, and the thing that sounded most appealing was doing something active, something that got his blood pumping and his aggression out. The boxing gym he usually went to was closed for the night- something about a private event that was starting up in about an hour, but the YMCA on Sands Street was still open for a few hours more, so he turned his feet that way, hunching his shoulders against the raw chill of the wind when it blew.

Outside of the building, leaning against the wrought iron fence, there had been a man struggling to get his zippo to spark. Not thinking too much of it, he had dug into his pocket and offered up a half-used book of matches, standing around while the guy went through three or four matches in an effort to light his cigarette against the wind. Having finally succeeded, he had handed the book of matches back with a nod and a “Thanks for that.” as Bucky had pocketed then again. The cigarette flared in the gloom as the man took a long drag, highlighting his sharp suit, red tie, and wolfish grin. “You stay here?”

“No,” He had answered honestly, “Just…looking for a workout.”

“Make a gay old time of it, eh?” The guy grinned.

“Sure.” He’d said easily, not particularly in the mood for small talk, but not wanting to be rude.

“You a horticultural lad?” Red Tie had asked casually, giving him an almost conspiratorial look.

“Say what?” He'd responded, puzzled by the ask.

“A fruit. A fairy. A queer. Look, don't take offense, kids. I was just asking. We like all types around here, and with that line about a workout, well… I was just tying to work out if you were about getting your cock sucked, or if it's an actual gym session you're after.”

“I'm not.” He’d answered after a beat, in what he hoped was a polite and non-judgmental manner. “I'm after an actual workout.” He’d started to turn, to walk on toward the door, thinking that of course he wasn't queer, but at the same time being unable to get the image of Steve’s lips out of his mind before pausing and turning back and blurting out in a fit of daring,

”What if I'm not opposed, though?”

Gordon (he’d learned later that that was the guy’s name) had grinned, snuffed his cigarette on the railing, and sauntered closer. “I think we can work something out.” He’d given him a very deliberate once-over and told him that he staffed the front desk inside, so he knew the guy on duty right now, and he could get Bucky up to his room, if he thought he wanted that. 

Bucky had nodded, his stomach twisting in nervous anticipation, and less than 10 minutes later he'd been upstairs in a narrow YMCA room that had nothing more than a bed, his back pressed against the closed door, his pants around his ankles, and his cock down another man’s throat, fighting not to ring his own bell embarrassingly quick.

After he had finished, leaning heavily against the door, Gordon had stood, his hand going into his own trousers in a effort to shoot the works himself, and Bucky had watched in fascination. He kept thinking about Steve, and even though he knew he'd never dare to suggest it because he'd never risk losing Steve's friendship, he knew he'd be imagining it. Except, he couldn't quite imagine Steve on his knees. Maybe he should have been able to, since Steve was so skinny and fine-boned, like a bird or a girl, and Bucky wasn't at all… but Steve was likely to slug anyone who though of him that way. And when he pictured it now as a fantasy, it was only himself he could imagine getting to his knees, taking care of Steve.

“Wait.” He told Gordon, who shot him a perturbed glare. “Teach me.” Gordon's look shifted to skepticism.

“You sure?” Bucky had nodded. Gordon shrugged. “Well damn. I took you for a bit of trade, but here you go impressing me all over again. Alright then. Get on your knees.” tentatively, Bucky had complied.

He'd eased him into it, putting his cock against Bucky’s lips, instructing him to lick it first, then feeding it to him slowly, warning him to keep his lips, rather than his teeth in contact, giving him pointers and pleasured noises to serve as a roadmap. He let him make his own way for awhile, get acclimated as it were, and then he'd gently wrapped his hand in Bucky's hair and began to direct the pace. He remembered blushing at how much he liked that, to the point where he hadn't even processed how much Gordon was liking it too. He'd been surprised by the flood of semen in his mouth, even though Gordon had warned him in advance, and even handed him a handkerchief with an understanding of a bit patronizing comment about how “Not all girls like to swallow, you know.”

He hadn't liked that part, as it turned out, and had been grateful for the use of the handkerchief. He'd left the Y that night with more questions than he'd started with, but a whole heck of a lot of information too.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been jarring to have such a sustained memory back, but comforting in a way too. These were facts and details that couldn't be gleaned from any file or dossier, memories he'd pretty sure Hydra wouldn't have tried to implant. He could be reasonably sure they came from his own mind- either memory or imagination, but his own mind nonetheless. Even the physical reactions he felt at the erotic memories that came back at first in snippets and then in longer stretches- naked backs and chests, open-mouthed kisses with men and women alike, being inside another person, having another person inside him, women's garters and men’s button-flys, moans and orgasms and muffled cries of pleasure- those were only jarring because of how simultaneously foreign and familiar the sensations felt.

No, it was the emotion that was the most difficult to process. Some things were a rush and a mindfuck to recall, like the exhilaration, lust, relaxation and fear he'd felt the time he, Foster, and Donaldson had gotten a 3 day pass after basic training at Camp McCoy and taken the five and a half hour drive down to Milwaukee (obeying the 35 MPH wartime speed limit for the most part) where they'd stayed with a very nice couple in an even nicer house near the lake who were happy to support young soldiers by giving them beds and home-cooked meals for a few days. They'd gone out dancing the first night, and he'd had a grand old time with a blonde who had legs that went on for miles and who didn't seems to have even a passing flirtation with the word no. She had her own room and her own rubbers, and he'd had to sneak back into his host’s dwelling around 4AM, careful not to creak the unfamiliar floorboards.

The second night had found him at the Royal Bar at the Royal Hotel, where there were a couple dozen servicemen crowded along half the bar, Army men and a fair few sailors from the Naval Base. He'd realized pretty quickly that they might all have been there for drinks, but not necessarily for girls. After a few pointed conversations about regional entertainments and seafood, he'd found himself in a park a few blocks away up against a tree with an entirely different type of blonde- a Navy man with dimples and a mouth like a Hoover. He'd been terrified they were going to be caught, court-marshaled, and imprisoned- he'd seen men in Military prisons for just this sort of thing by that point- and the fear, trepidation, and excitement in the defiance of that possibility had made him come harder than just about any other time in his life, up until then.

The next morning, he'd been up before breakfast and ready begin the drive back to base with the others when their host’s daughter, Alice had cornered him in the library and told him that she'd heard him sneaking in, and that she knew what he'd been up to. She was wearing a sweet, flowy lilac number, was supposed to be starting college the next month, and sounded like she was flirting instead of accusing him of being queer, so he took a chance and laid on the charm. Turned out she hadn't known about Vince, but had guessed about Billie, and assumed he'd been out with another girl the night before. She'd flirted and pouted and told him she wouldn't tell her parents and make them think poorly of him, if he'd just kiss her, and since he didn't want much scrutiny or to be run out of the house as a cad and a scoundrel before breakfast, he'd gone along, giving her the type of lingering closed-mouth press of the lips kiss that you saw in the pictures.

Alice must have been watching some very different pictures though, because she had promptly pushed his shoulders back against the Davenport, pulled off his hat, and settled herself and her skirts into his lap, saying “I meant a real kiss, silly!”

There had followed a very pleasant twenty minutes of necking, because he wasn't about to deflower the daughter of a wealthy family in their own library and then go eat bacon at their breakfast table, but he also wasn't in the business of making a woman who knew what she wanted feel ashamed for it. He had every confidence that he would become a story that she whispered about excitedly to her dorm mates about while they knit socks and planted victory gardens and conjugated Latin, or whatever else it was they did for the war effort. His ideas about college were understandably hazy.

All of the emotions in those memories were fine. Some of them- exhilaration, determination, fear- they mapped on to what was already within his recollection as Winter Soldier. Others, like lust and trust and contentment, were starting to come back to him. But what fucked him up every time was memories of Steve, because the emotion that felt the most foreign, the most desirable, and therefore the most threatening was love. He didn't quite trust that it was real…and if it was, he was afraid he had already lost it on board the Helicarrier.

There was no denying that Bucky Barnes had loved Steve Rogers. It's there, in all the memories that come spilling back- his hand on Steve's bare back on a summer morning as they're bivouacking through Switzerland on their way back from a mission, sun spilling through the tent flaps they'd left open away from camp to watch the stars the night before… Steve's hair underneath his fingers as they kiss like they're taking long pulls from a canteen, his thighs straddling Steve’s… the way he remembers feeling when he marched beside Steve, like he'd follow him to the ends of the earth… Steve laying him down in a narrow bed in a London rooming house, trailing his hands across Bucky’s ribs and making him shiver, even though they both already come twice that night.

It's there in the memories of Steve pulling him off the lab table in Austria, carrying him toward safety….in the way Steve would lean back against him and sometimes even doze off propped against Bucky’s chest when the nebulizer worked to quiet the asthma and he was able to breathe more easily. It was there in the way he remembers snapping at Steve, trying to convince him not to join the military, because he could stand the thought of losing his own life far more readily than he was willing to entertain the idea of losing Steve. It was the warmth that bloomed through his chest at the memories of Steve, the warmth that echoed the feeling he had within each of those memories.

He started keeping a journal of all the things he remembered- jumbled images and full memories alike as they came together. He'd known Steve's friend was looking for him. He even debated letting Sam Wilson find him. He wasn't whole yet- wasn't sure if he ever would be- but the thing that was starting to kill him was remembering Steve, but being reasonably sure that the Winter Soldier has destroyed whatever had existed between them. 

The Winter Soldier has destroyed so much, after all. Those memories had come back too- come back earlier, for the most part, because they weren't buried so deep. They'd let him keep most of those, actually- there were only a few gaps- targets that were too top secret to leave unattended in a cryogenically frozen super-soldier, a span of months where he'd been training assassins in Kiev where he has vague recollections of getting close to a red-headed trainee, times when they'd re-set him for being disobedient or asking questions. Those memories stayed fuzzy, blurry and out of focus even as they came back, almost like it was easier for his handlers to overwrite the memories once he was already under their brainwashing. But he still remembered every kill he'd made as the Winter Soldier. He remembered their faces and their deaths, if not every detail of every missions. His kills. Those memories haunt his dream and dog his waking moments. The knowledge that Steve might not forgive him for all of it— shouldn't forgive him for it— is as bad as the guilt itself. And it's why, when Steve had shown up in his little bolt-hole of an apartment in Bucharest, he's not ready to face him. It's why he lied, why he fought, why he fled, for all the good it did. Less the certainty he was no longer a man Steve Rogers could love, more the fear that he never would be.

But Steve had believed in him, fought for him, defended him to his friends. Steve had fought some of his own friends with Bucky at his side once again, and defied 117 nations- including his own, even leaving his shield behind just to show how much he believed that the man he had known and loved would be a part of whoever Bucky Barnes was in this brave new world.

Bucky had used some of that faith to bolster his own.

He realizes he's gone quiet, not sure if it's been a few seconds or and uncomfortably long pause.

“I loved him.” He says softly. “And once I was back, had my memories back, had Hydra out of my head… I was so terrified that he had moved on, or found someone else. That day you found us in your lab…” he gives an embarrassed smile. “That was the first time we'd, uhh… reconnected?”

Shuri grins.

“It seems you picked up right where you left off.”

He chuckles.

“Maybe. Not entirely though. So much had changed. We talked about it, one of the times he came back to Wakanda later on. So much was different. Captain America was even more famous, The Winter Soldier was infamous, there are cameras and technology everywhere you look now…it was a lot harder to be the men behind those enhanced identities. There's not really a bivouac with a pup tent where you can get some privacy anymore.”

“That's why you liked the farm so much.” She surmises.

“Yeah. It was quiet there. Peaceful. Not many people looking in. Steve liked it too.”

He'd finally gotten to bring Steve there, several months after he'd woken up, maybe two months before Thanos. Actually, T’Challa had brought Steve out to the farm, stayed for part of the tour before having to return to his duties.

After he was gone, Steve had turned, looking out over the land and said “it's beautiful, Buck.” And then he'd held Bucky's gaze and repeated himself “Real beautiful.” He’d felt his heart leap, knowing they weren't talking about the scenery anymore.

“Yeah, it is.” He’d responded, never taking his eyes off Steve’s. Steve had kissed him then, right out there in the open. Bucky had kissed him back, let himself get lost in it for a few seconds. In that moment, he'd needed that kiss more than he'd needed oxygen. Steve’s arm had crept around his waist, pulling him close so that their chests aligned, and Bucky could feel Steve's heartbeat. He could hear some of the children giggling in the distance as they drew apart again, Steve tracing his hand down Bucky's arm to interlock their fingers.

“Is it alright if I stay for a bit?” Steve asked softly. Bucky had looked at him, taking in the changes. His hair was longer, and he had several weeks of bread growth. He should have looked ridiculous, but instead he just looked beautiful.

“Are you able to?” He’d asked, thinking of the last time, when he’d had to leave so abruptly.

“Natasha has very strict instructions not to pull me away unless the fate of the world hangs in the balance,” Steve assured him.

“So a strong maybe?” Bucky had joked, and was rewarded with watching Steve’s eyes crinkle.

“I’d love to have you here.” He had continued in quiet affirmation. The sun had been well on the way to setting, giving the air around them a purplish, hazy quality that made even small gestures seem to be of infinite magnitude.

“I'm trying really hard not to hear that as innuendo if that wasn't how you intended it.” Steve had told him carefully, and Bucky had smiled- a deep, genuine one that reached past his lips and anchored in his chest.

“I wasn't intending it as innuendo,” he admitted, “but I'm not opposed to the interpretation.”

He'd wanted to have Steve here, after all. He'd wanted to share the sunrises here with him, wake up beside him, fall asleep next to him too. He wants to have Steve here as well, in a biblical sense.

Steve's smile had been so relieved, and the relief cascaded on to Bucky. It was a sign that Steve still wanted this, whatever was between them…and that he was willing to give it a chance, to figure out if there could be something there going forward. 

“Bucky…” The word was filled with such tenderness, as Steve brushed a strand of hair out of Bucky's eyes.

“Steve…” Bucky had returned the gesture, marveling at how long Steve's hair had been then- long enough to fall over his brow and into his eyes. He wanted to comb his fingers through it. “Always. I'll always want you. End of the line, right?” That phrase has been as sacred to him as marriage vows.

“End of the line,” Steve had affirmed, even as Bucky tangled their fingers together again and drew him back toward the hut. Once inside, he'd had the embarrassing realization that while Steve smelled like cologne and some sort of woodsy shampoo, he smelled like a goat farm.

“I should…uh… clean up.” He had muttered, wondering how he was going to go about doing that, given that he usually washed using the water in the large jug on the makeshift table, and the sponge that lay beside it. He figured he could probably head to the river with a smaller jug and be back in under ten minutes. It wasn't ideal, but it was a solution.

“Let me help you.”

“I…” he had started to protest reflexively, then stopped himself. The idea of Steve touching him, bathing him… it was terrifyingly intimate, but at the same time, he wanted it. “Okay.” He’d poured a measure of water into the earthenware basin and reached to unbutton his shirt. Steve had meanwhile shucked his jacket and laid it across the pile of blankets, his shirt following a moment later, and his t-shirt after that. He remembered marveling at how Steve could wear that many layers in this heat.

He hadn't taken his shirt off immediately. It was more of a vest than a shirt, given how he'd removed the sleeves, but removing it also meant removing the scarf that concealed his shoulder, and despite the fact that Steve hadn't freaked out before, he still hadn't been confident about a lover’s reaction. He popped the button of his jeans instead, stalling. Steve had done the same, and followed Bucky's lead in taking of his shoes as well. And then, unable to stall any longer, Bucky had ducked his head and removed the scarf, and then his shirt to stand bare-chested before the one person where his vanity and vulnerability intersected.

He was aware how grotesque it looked, even after Shuri’s work- scar tissue from the initial injuries, and the places where the metal had twisted into his flesh, the places where bits of it still did, just now with vibranium anchors.. She had cleaned up a lot of it, claiming that the new attachment points would be more effective and less obtrusive, but this was still the first time Steve was seeing it not covered by a sleeve, scarf, or prosthetic. 

“Well,” he quipped “What do you think of the new me?”

“That you're a sight for sore eyes, and I can barely believe we’re actually here, together, against all odds.” Steve stepped closer to squeeze some of the water from the loofah. “And that you standing here in front of me almost undressed is still one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.” The praise settled unevenly on his skin, but he knew by then that that's his insecurity talking, and it doesn't talk as loud as it used to. “Also,” Steve continued, standing behind him, drops of water plinking back into the bowl, “You should take your pants off if you don't want them to get soaked with water.”

“Whatever,” Bucky had said, laying out the casual bravado he didn't entirely feel, “You just want to see my ass.”

Steve shifted closer- not touching, but close enough that Bucky had been able to feel the heat of Steve's chest radiating along his spine.

“Damn right I do.” Steve had murmured, his breath whispering across the back of Bucky’s neck, and Bucky had shivered as much from that as from the sentiment and the cuss word on Steve’s lips. He'd removed his pants immediately, tossed them aside, and stood waiting for Steve to make the next move. When Steve had let the sponge glide across his shoulders, sending a trickle of water down his back that felt cool on his over-heated skin, he had let out an audible sigh.

Steve had been incredibly thorough, washing every inch of him, attentive and tender the entire time. It had been hard at times, to bear being touched like that- with care and tenderness. But it was also something he was determined to allow himself to experience. He'd stood there while Steve knelt to wash his thighs, his wet fingers tangling lightly in Steve’s hair, been gratified when Steve has pressed whisper-light kisses to the valley of muscle near his hip. He had teased Bucky's growing erection, nuzzling against the shaft, even gliding his lips along the length of it, but not quite taking Bucky in his mouth. That sight- Steve barefoot and kneeling in front of him wearing nothing but damp jeans was one of the more wonderfully erotic sights he'd seen. 

Steve had stood again, circling around behind him once more to wash the back of his neck and pulled him back against his broad chest. He'd licked droplets of water from Bucky's skin, sucked at a sensitive point on his neck until Bucky's head had dipped back against Steve's shoulder. Bucky had reached back to brace himself against Steve’s thigh, had felt Steve smile against his skin.

“Touch yourself.” Steve had instructed him, and he'd done it, sliding his hand along his own torso and then down to play with his cock. 

“You have no idea how much I want you.” Steve told him, voice ragged, his beard scratching as light as a whisper on Bucky's left shoulder and one finger teasing at his entrance.

“I've got an inkling.” He'd breathed, and Steve had laughed, used his hand to turn Bucky's head for a kiss even while his other hand kept up the teasing strokes across his asshole.

“I want to be able to lay down with you and take our time,” Steve has told him, and Bucky had wanted that too. 

“Yes. Want you inside me.” Bucky had informed him, too distracted to bother with full sentences, and Steve had moaned at that, muffling the sound in Bucky's shoulder, letting his teeth dig in a bit in a way that made Bucky's eyelids flutter.

Later, when they had spread the sleep mat of rushes he used as a mattress on the floor and covered it with layers of blankets, when Steve had knelt between his thighs and worked him open with his fingers while they kissed languid, honeyed kisses, aided by the bottle of lube that he had extracted from his jacket pocket (and damn if lube wasn't a hell of a lot better now than it used to be) Steve had reached for a condom, and Bucky had stopped him. 

“Do you… are you… have you been with anyone else? Since…” he knew that things have changed a lot regarding sexual health since 1945, he had the Internet, thank you very much. Those VD films the army had showed are still seated in his mind too.

Admittedly, this was probably a discussion they should have had a lot earlier. Steve eased back a bit into a sitting position, and Bucky had propped himself up on his elbow.

“Um… a couple of times, with Nat?” Steve shrugged sheepishly, and damn if he hadn't looked attractive even while talking about other people he's slept with and blushing furiously. “But we always used protection, because she doesn't really do exclusive relationships, and we both got tested regularly, so…” he bit his lip, and had suddenly looked just as shy and nervous as he did at 15. “What about… for you?”

“I don't think…maybe there was someone during a mission a long time ago?” He’d struggled to articulate his uncertainty. “I can't…. those memories never really came back with everything else, it's just blurs and foggy impressions of a woman with red hair, someone I wanted to trust. I think they did a deep wipe of that mission, or edited the memories a lot.” He tucked his knees under him and sat up, reaching for Steve.

“But since that last Hydra mission where you gave me back my name? There's been no one. And a Shuri gave me a clean bill of health, in all regards. So I guess that I'm asking is…are you alright if we don't use a condom?”

“I… yes. Yes, of course.” Steve’s eyes had gone wide as he answered, setting the condom packet aside, then asking with his particular deadpan humor. “Buck, are you asking me to go steady?”

“Seventy-Five Years seems like enough time, in the grand scheme of things.” He joked, rising up on his knees to coax Steve into a kiss. 

“Yeah. Yeah it does.” Steve leaned up into the kiss, his arms wrapping around Bucky's torso and drawing him down.

“Want to feel you inside of me,” he had murmured against Steve’s lips between kisses. “Want to feel every inch of you, nothing between us.”

“What's stopping you?” Steve had asked him, glancing pointedly at how Bucky was now essentially in his lap. They'd ended up fucking in that position, Bucky controlling the speed at which Steve entered him, the speed at which they moved

The pace he’d set was slow and sensual, an inexorable build toward release, with ample time to re-learn each other's bodies. He'd savored every gasp and sound that either of them made, the ecstasy of every roll of his hips and every thrust of Steve's. He wasn't sure how many hours they'd made love for, knew only that by the time they'd curled together in the nest of blankets, innumerable positions and three or four orgasms later, the sky had been dark for hours, and he’d felt contented in way he'd never remembered feeling before.

He’d woken once, in that short night. It had been perhaps an hour before dawn, when the darkness was beginning to fade to a deep blue. Steve's arm was draped loosely over his waist, their ankles kicked out from the blankets and tangled together, and his cheek was pressed somewhere in the vicinity of Steve's shoulder. 

He’d braced for the panic to wash over him, for the feeling of being held and trapped to awaken the fear, the expectation of pain, the need to move. It still hit him some nights then- still does now, for that matter, but it was one of the early things he'd been working on in therapy, so he knew how to work with it instead of letting it take him over. But that night, it never came, and he'd drifted off to sleep again.

When he'd woken for real, the sun was up, and Steve was no longer beside him. A quick look around proved he hadn't gone far though- he was just past the end of the sleeping mat, going through a series of stretches, tantalizingly silhouetted by the sunlight from the doorway.

There was a commotion from outside, and then Anwota’s voice raised and speaking in English for their benefit, “Thosdah, leave the White Wolf alone. He has a visitor, and I'm sure they don't want to be disturbed this morning.”

“But I always bother him in the morning!” Thosdah had complained, his voice coming closer, which promoted Steve to scramble for a blanket to wrap hastily around his waist for modesty.

“Not this morning,” Anwota admonished firmly, speaking in English for their benefit. “This morning he is busy. I'm sure he and his guest will say hello later, once they are awake.”

“Alright…” Thosdah seemed less than enthused about the arrangement. “Why are they sleeping so late?” Was his next petulant inquiry as his voice grew distant again.

“Because, little one,” Anwota replied, her smile evident just from the warmth of her tone. “They were up very late last night becoming familiar with each other again.”

Steve had collapsed back into the blankets with him, trying to keep his laughter quiet.

“They're, uh… pretty understanding here.” Bucky had rather needlessly explained.

“It seems like they're a lot more understanding for at least a couple of things these days,” Steve had said, and then leaned in for a deep, exploratory kiss.

“Good morning.” He'd said afterwards, an easy smile upon his lips, and it had just been so simple to pull him back down into the nest of blankets and kiss him for several long minutes… and then staying in bed quite awhile longer, until the need for food drove them to find clothes and venture outside.

Of course the goats, and the work that he needed to do hadn't just disappeared because he had other things (or, in point of fact, people) he'd rather be doing, but Steve had offered his assistance, and the efforts of two enhanced human beings had made the essential tasks go quickly, so it hadn't mattered too much that they'd spent half the time they were supposed to working just shoving each other into piles of hay to start necking. They'd ended up with hay tangled in their hair, clinging to their beards and clothes, and generally looking like scarecrows, much to the delight of Thosdah and his friends who laughed at them as they made their way back to Bucky's hut to devote a considerable amount to time to cleaning themselves up.

Steve had fit in so well there for those few precious days, and the visit he'd made again three weeks later- sharing meals with Anwota and Unamiah and their extended family, laying out under the stars and talking for hours about the things they'd lost and gained, the ways the world was different and the ways it was remarkably still the same…competing to see how many sacks of hay they could load and carry, or who the goats liked best…making love slow and passionate in the hut at night, or stopping to fuck desperately in the woods during the day, dousing each other with water when they went to go collect it from the river and then needing to spread their clothes out to dry in the grass while they stretched out on a long, flat rock in the sun that was conveniently shielded by enough vegetation that they could pleasure each other without being observed.

He'd started to envision a future for them- semi-retirement, maybe. A farm and a house- here, or something like what Barton had, which Steve talked about a surprising amount. Letting Natasha and Sam handle the day to day, and giving Steve a break. Not having to fight anymore himself, unless things got really dire. He figured he'd never really stop being a soldier…but his heart wasn't in it anymore, and he'd spent enough time on active duty. It seemed like Steve was maybe leaning the same direction.

He just hadn't realized Steve was leaning all the way back to 1952.


	7. Chapter 7

Steve had fit in so well there for those few precious days, and the visit he'd made again three weeks later- sharing meals with Anwota and Unamiah and their extended family, laying out under the stars and talking for hours about the things they'd lost and gained, the ways the world was different and the ways it was remarkably still the same…competing to see how many sacks of hay they could load and carry, or who the goats liked best…making love slow and passionate in the hut at night, or stopping to fuck desperately in the woods during the day, dousing each other with water when they went to go collect it from the river and then needing to spread their clothes out to dry in the grass while they stretched out on a long, flat rock in the sun that was conveniently shielded by enough vegetation that they could pleasure each other without being observed.

He'd started to envision a future for them- semi-retirement, maybe. A farm and a house- here, or something like what Barton had, which Steve talked about a surprising amount. Letting Natasha and Sam handle the day to day, and giving Steve a break. Not having to fight anymore himself, unless things got really dire. He figured he'd never really stop being a soldier…but his heart wasn't in it anymore, and he'd spent enough time on active duty. It seemed like Steve was maybe leaning the same direction.

He just hadn't realized Steve was leaning all the way back to 1952.

That was unfair, perhaps. Steve had spent five years dealing with the outfall of The Snap, after all. He'd been alone most of that time, and grieving. They hadn't had much time afterwards, either. 

Steve had been grieving Tony of course, and Natasha- Bucky had the sense that the two of them had been one of the only sources of comfort for each other. He didn't begrudge the that. It wasn't like he'd been here, anyway. Not that he'd had a choice to stay or go. Not like Steve had, in the end. He wishes that didn't still sting as much as it does.

Once everyone was back, the joy tempered by loss, Steve had been sadder, more reserved than he remembered. Tired.

He'd still reached for Bucky, after they had survived the battle, sweat and blood and other substances best not thought about staining their clothes and skin. They'd collapsed into each other, holding each other up, exhaustion, grief, and disbelief at the apparent victory creating a numbing emotional cocktail. 

He'd let Steve go so he could greet Sam and all the rest, took his usual place one step back and to the left as hugs were exchanged, and then as Steve heard the news about Tony and took off running, only to arrive too late to say goodbye.

He'd waited there beside Steve as all of the aftermath was taken care of, as people found places to go, and began to process the aftermath and the clean-up operation.

Bucky followed Steve the rest of the day, running interference where he can- followed him into the line of SUVs that someone eventually sends, all the way to the mountaintop hotel that Pepper- still managing everything that needed doing, despite her grief- had rented out an entire floor of for them to get a reprieve, and down the long hallway to the rooms.

“There's another room if you want…” Steve had said hesitantly, holding open the door. “But if you want to stay…” of course Bucky had followed him.

They hadn't turned on the lights. He'd only distantly taken in the balcony and the view of pine trees dotting the limestone cliff faces that lined the mountain lake… long enough to realize that while it looked gray and cloud-covered out there, it was really the ash and dust drifting in from the field of battle in the valley.

Steve had dropped his helmet on the floor with an empty thunk, and stood unmoving in the center of the room. “I need a shower.” He’d said distantly, and of course they both did.

“You can have first go.” Bucky had told him— some of the first words they'd actually spoken in hours. Or years, depending on how you looked at it. Strange had told them before he opened the portals that it had been years for the people who hadn't been dusted. Years was too long to expect someone to wait. Weeks, or even months…he'd have wanted Steve to hold out hope. But he'd never have wanted for Steve to put his life on hold to carry a torch for years. He wasn't about to assume that what they'd started half a decade ago, or seven decades before that was still in a place where they could just pick up again where they'd left off.

Steve had nodded and headed to the en suite, every movement exhausted, like he was carrying an incredibly heavy weight. He'd paused in the doorway, bracing his hands against the doorframe, leaving smudges on the white paint as he looked blankly into the bathroom.

“Don't really want to be alone,” he'd admitted.

“You're not.” Bucky had promised him fervently, crossing the room without a second thought. “End of the line. Always.”

He'd helped Steve out of the uniform, like a squire to a medieval knight, took off his own armor as well, then set the water temperature to something he knew Steve would approve of and maneuvered them both into the massive glassed-in shower.

Steve had wrapped his arms around him under the spray, and Bucky had curled his hand around the nape of Steve’s neck, held him close in the silence and spray. He'd felt Steve's erection growing against his thigh, felt his body respond in kind, despite everything. But Steve didn't move to react, so neither did he. Eventually, they'd gotten to scrubbing away the battle from their skin, washing their hair. Bucky had been combing conditioner through his hair with his fingers when Steve finally made brought his hand up to cup Bucky's jaw, met his eye, and kissed him, the spray from the shower head splashing on their cheeks.

“Fuck me.” He'd said, half plea and half command, and Bucky had complied, turning Steve to face the wall, positioning his hands over his head, and dragging his cock along the cleft of Steve’s ass, slowly pumping between Steve’s thighs to keep him centered while scanning around for something to use as lube. 

The little bottle of bath and body oil had seemed the most promising, and although he had no idea what ’Sea Buckthorn oil’ was as far as scent was concerned, it purported to do a body good, so that's what he'd gone with, preparing Steve with his right hand and pinning his wrists together with the vibranium one. 

He'd sensed that in this moment, Steve needed something careful, intentional… but not gentle. So he'd fucked him with hard, deliberate thrusts, screwed him up against the wall for a long time until Steve came with a shout and painted the tile with his semen. Bucky had followed a few thrusts later, spilling inside Steve and stilling there, letting the water rain down over them, the long strands of his hair making waterfalls over both their shoulders.

Afterwards, he'd helped Steve dry off, got him to lie down on the bed with its luxurious white linens, and propped himself up with a pillow so Steve could use his preferred pillow, which was Bucky's right pectoral, and had been since the mid 1930s. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same and all that.

They didn't talk, just lay there in the stillness until Steve fell asleep, Bucky's arm around his shoulder, while Bucky kept watch of the lake rippling and the already dimmed light fading into darkness. 

He'd woken up hours later, his arm numb from holding it in that single position. Steve was curled even closer to him, his breathing deep and even, and despite everything, he'd let himself hope. 

He should have known better. 

That was the last time they fucked, though. They'd shared a bed the next two nights at the rental house Pepper had found for the rest of Avengers, but it had been about comfort and sleep, not sex. They'd talked- about what Steve had gone through over 5 horrific years, what it was like for Bucky being back in the world. But, he realized now, they'd never talked about their future. 

And then Steve had gone to replace the stones, and ended up replacing Bucky in the process. No matter how he cut it, that still hurt, like broken ribs aching every time he took a breath. He was so mad, and so hurt, and he wanted Steve to be happy even if it wasn't with him… but he'd thought it was going to be with him, and that loss gets more staggering every day, not less. He doesn't want to hold out hope about what that note could mean. He tells himself that even if it's a chance to hear Steve explain himself and get some closure, it would be worth it. But Hope is the thing with feathers, after all, and he can feel it fluttering in his chest.

He realizes abruptly that he's gone silent, and that it's probably been several minutes since he's touched his food. Shuri’s expression is sympathetic, or maybe pitying. maybe also a little worried.

“I thought we had something.” He says, his voice thick. “Something we could build on. I thought there was a life out there for us. And then T’Challa came to the farm with the new arm and the news about Thanos, and there was nothing to do but fight and hope we won the battle.”

“But we didn't win.” Shuri crosses her arms, hugging them close to her chest. Its an odd thing, to be slammed with a reminder of something you already know. Shuri was snapped away, just like he was. But they've never talked about. People don't talk about it much these days. He knows that as time goes on, there will be stories, documentaries pieces together of “where were your when The Snap happened.” It's just not like that yet.

It will be like Pearl Harbor, or the way people talk about September 11th, or the Battle of New York or the way the Helicarriers came down over DC. The way some of the older folks these days talk about the Kennedy Assassination. Really, he's been directly involved in too many of these types of events.

But this was global, in a way that the other things weren't. It's too big. The world hasn't moved on to the point where they can just talk about it yet, still too wrapped up in solving the problems that arose from it. When you hear stories, it's usually from the people who were left behind, with five years of memories. Even though half the world shares the experience of disintegrating into dust, it's rarely discussed. The Return is- what people came back to find, partners who had moved on, family and friends who had died in those years, children whose parents missed 5 years of their lives, beloved pets gone, all kinds of tragedies and legal and moral entanglements. There are support groups, and resources being mobilized. But the people who disintegrated, especially those who realized why as it happened? They don't get to talk about it much. Once it was ascertained that the universal experience was that they hadn't experienced the precise agony of cells shredding apart into nothingness, and then they had known nothing until the return, the questions stopped. People who had stayed didn't often want to know more, and people who had gone were usually hesitant to talk about the experience around those who had lived the pain of being left behind. As though the timeline of those separate traumas defines their impact. He knows it doesn't always work that way, knows intimately how realizing you're dying and then being dragged back to life can fuck with your head. All the same, he's fallen into the same pattern. He hadn't talked to Steve about it, hasn't really talked about it with anyone, save briefly with his therapist. Shuri probably hasn't either. That's got to change, at some point.

“What was it like for you?” He asks cautiously, breaking the subtle taboo. Shuri hesitates.

“Do you want to walk for a bit?” She asks, nodding her head toward the wide balcony. Walking sounded much better than sitting still at the moment, so he nods and they leave the table. Shuri answers his question as they walk.

“I felt… wrong. My blaster gauntlet stopped working, and when I looked at it, it was just…crumbling away. It took me a second to realize that it wasn't just the gauntlet. I was terrified for a second or two and then…nothing.” She glances back from looking out at the city below them, her braids swinging as she turns her head. “Is that what it was like for you?”

He presses his lips together, nods.

“I was walking toward Steve, looking for him, terrified that he'd been hurt or killed, because I knew he'd be the asshole who decided to go up against Thanos alone, and my arm suddenly felt… wrong. Too light, almost?” He meets her gaze, willing her to understand the importance of what he's saying. “His name was the last thing on my lips.”

“You love him, don't you?” She does get it.

“More than anyone else I've ever known,” he agrees. “Once I would have loved him more than I loved myself.”

“And now?” Shuri asks. He sighs.

“Now, I have the benefit of quality mental healthcare to help me recognize that caring more about another person than you care about yourself isn't exactly healthy, and I'm better at recognizing how to be on solid footing with myself. Which is probably good, all things considered. But that’s liking myself more these days, not loving him less. I don’t know if I’m capable of loving him less.”

Shuri nods, squinting against the sun.

“I heard about what happened, after he went to return the infinity stones. I knew it must have been difficult for you, as his friend.” The look she gives him is altogether too knowing. “Especially given the type of friendship I guessed you had. But I had not known that you were in love with him.”

“That's fine. I didn't realize it for a long time either, and I was living it.”

“When did you realize?” She asks.

“When did I realize, or when did I let myself call it that? Because those are two very different answers.”

They reach the end of the balcony, so he leans against the railing and tilts his face up toward the sun, lets it soak in for a moment. He's definitely not thinking about Steve’s face under this same sun in the field near the hut, tilted up for a kiss.

“I think part of me realized it when we were practically still kids. And during the war… knowing didn't change anything about what the world would let us have, so why think about it? If I'm being honest, I stopped thinking about what would happen after the war. Partly because I wasn't convinced I'd make it through, partly because I wasn't sure there was much there for me on the other side of it if I did.” He gives her a rueful look.

“And of course, I didn't make it.” He shrugs a little, pulls an is what it is sort of expression.

“And then I was the Winter Soldier, and didn't remember, but there must have still been something, because Steve was able to hammer some cracks in that wall… but without knowing who I was or what kind of damage I had done… I needed time. 

I finally told him here, in Wakanda. That's when I let myself call it love out loud. Six weeks before Thanos, and he was away doing missions for most of that time.” The unfairness of it eats at him, with the benefit of hindsight.

He'd been nervous about it, the day before Steve was set to leave. He'd gotten to the point though where he couldn't keep thinking in possible futures and hiding what he wanted. Not from Steve. Not when he was having the most erotic, honest, emotional and frankly hottest sex of his life with the man. 

He'd been awake early, worrying about it. Worrying that Steve cared about him deeply, but in a different way, perhaps. He’d thought through all the scenarios he could envision, what the outcomes might be. Most of them terrified him. But any way you sliced it, he needed to know.

Steve was awake early too, probably because he sensed something was off. He'd propped himself up on his elbow and said good morning, in a cheerful, but also somewhat puzzled way, given how Bucky was sitting up cross-legged in the blankets already dressed. Bucky, never good at these sorts of interactions, had just decided to rip the bandage off.

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” Steve had replied, obviously puzzled by what was going on here, the terse way that Bucky was talking.

“I mean that I'm in love with you.” He'd had to clarify.

Steve's shoulders relaxed a bit. Bucky could note every twitch of muscle, every widening of pupil, every shift in beathing. He could tell if someone was going to shoot at him, throw a punch or a projectile, analyze what type of martial arts they were going to employ and move to block them accordingly. But his skills were useless here. He had no framework, in any of his lives, for how a man is going to react when you tell him you’re in love with him.

“That’s how I meant it too, Buck.” Steve had gotten to his knees, the blankets dropping to the floor. That just wasn't fair, because how on earth was a guy supposed to keep a coherent thought in his head when presented with Steven Grant Rogers naked form. His cock alone was an unfair conversational advantage, and there he'd been in all his glory, thick, muscled thighs and his damned incredible posterior, which Bucky could see the curve of, not to mention the mouthwatering sight of Steve's serum-enhanced torso.

“I love you.” Steve had told him. “I love you so much it scares me, to care about another person this much.” And yeah, that was exactly how Bucky felt. He'd nodded, and Steve kept going. “About the only thing that doesn't scare me about feeling this way is that it's you.”

“I… same, Steve.” He’d breathed Steve's name like it was a damned holy word. “I feel the goddamned same way. But love isn't supposed to be frightening.”

“What says?” Steve had challenged. 

“People.” Bucky had said weakly.

“Well people can come fight me then, and I'm going to win, because I'm fighting to be by your side, Bucky Barnes, and I don't intend to stop.”

He'd kissed him then, a filthy, slow-burning kiss that left Bucky reeling and reaching for Steve. Steve had stripped him of the simple robe he’d donned and stretched him out beneath him, worshiping his body with lips and tongue and teeth (because Bucky likes a little bit of rough mixed up in the sweet) until Bucky has been begging for release, but Steve had denied him, explaining conversationally that he was going to fuck him through the rushes and into the center of of the fucking earth, and he was just going to have to wait to come until he could do so with Steve's cock in him. Bucky had shivered to hear such filthy sentiments coming out of Steve's mouth.  
Steve had kept that promise too, at least in the metaphorical sense, swallowing Bucky’s cock down to the root, but circling his fingers around his balls tight enough that he couldn't come despite his body spasming for it. Once he was at the point of keening and begging, his hands clenching the mat so hard the rushes crumpled in his fists, Steve had flipped him over onto his knees and proceeded to fuck him with sufficient force to live up to his surname.  
Bucky had come explosively and no surfeit of expletives, panting because even his enhanced lungs were no match for the exertion.

“That's it,” Steve had told him, breathing ragged as well, talking him through the afterglow, sliding in and out of him still with slow strokes that made him trembled with overstimulation. “Do you have any idea how good you look, how good you feel, coming like that on my cock? Of course I love you, Buck. I've loved you for a long time. I've always loved you, always believed in you.” He’d shifted his arms to wrap around Bucky's torso, hauled him back against the slickness of his sweaty chest to whisper in his ear,

“I believe in you right now, Buck. I believe that you can come again, right now, if I keep fucking you. What do you say, Lover? Can you come for me again? I bet you can.”

“I thought Captain America doesn't gamble.” Bucky had snarked, never able to resist an opportunity for it, but he was already moving his hips, arching into Steve's challenge, his thighs spread wide and wanton over Steve's.

“Oh, believe me, Bucky Barnes. I’ll always gamble on you.” Steve had promised, punctuating it with a snap of his hips that had Bucky shouting as Steve's cock hit exactly the place inside of him that made his vision blur out in ecstasy. He kept at it too, holding Bucky against him and angling his hips just right drag across that spot on every thrust while Bucky had wrapped his hand around Steve’s wrist and held on for dear life as Steve wrung a second, and then an incredible third orgasm out of him.

Even after that, they hadn't been able to stop. They had kept kissing, exhausted, blissed-out kisses where their lips caught and dragged and hovered, sharing breath. Bucky hadn't been able to resist putting his hand on Steve's ass, kneading the incredible muscle there, letting his fingers dip between Steve's ass cheeks and skim over his hole, causing Steve to grind against his thigh. 

Eventually, he'd found the bottle of lube and made Steve squeeze some onto his fingers, slicking them up and pushing a couple of them inside Steve, stroking inside him, pulling moans and beautiful expletives from Steve's lips as they kissed until Steve spilled again, hot against his thigh as he swallowed down the declarations Steve made against his lips.

The night they had stolen together three weeks later, when Steve had turned up with a box of truffles, fresh of some sort of recognizance mission in Belgium, and they had eaten them in front of the fire, sharing the box with Anwota and Thosda and all the rest before ducking back into the hut had been just as perfect. 

Steve hadn't waited to kiss him until they got indoors. He'd pushed him back against the wall beside the doorway instead, kissing him slow and unhurried under under the stars. Their lovemaking had been slow and unhurried that night, Steve's hand wrapped around them both, stroking them both at once as they swallowed down each other's moans and came within seconds of each other, talking in whispered tones for a long time before falling asleep wrapped together again, even though Steve had to leave again early in the morning. He'd felt love, and hope then. He'd believed in it, even though he wasn't entirely convinced he deserved it. 

And then war had come again, and everything had changed.

“He told me he loved me too,” he summarizes.

“At least you both had a chance to know, before…”

“Yeah.” He agrees heavily. “But having something to lose makes it a lot harder to face down a battle, even if it gives you something to fight for. Before… back in the War, everyone knew you loved your buddies like they were a part of you, and everyone knew the danger we were in before a mission. So even if we hadn't said the words, we knew what it meant if kisses were a little more desperate, looks lingered a little longer, if there were more back slaps and should squeezes, arms thrown around shoulders. We knew that we might not be coming back from any mission or battle.” 

Remembering is hard. These ghosts and flickers of memory aren't just memories. He feels the echo of them ripple through him as he talks, has been riding these ripples all morning. It's a lot, even though he's been doing better these days. 

Shuri moves to his side, sensing his discomfort and slides her slender arm around his waist, a solid, comforting pressure against the back of his hips. He accepts the hug, lifts his arm to settle it over her shoulders. He realizes abruptly that it's been a long time since he's had anything but the most incidental contact with another person. She leans her head on his shoulder, tightens her narrow fingers at his side. It's a grounding, centering sensation, and he tilts his head down to rest on hers, a non-verbal thank you. 

“Before the battle here, Steve took me aside. Right over there, actually.” He nods down at the building across the courtyard below whose walls extend down in graceful swoops to street level, and make for some relatively private nooks. “It wasn't… he wasn't trying to hide us, you know. Just… we hadn't told anyone yet. Hell, he'd been talking to Tony again for all of about three minutes, and it… it wasn't the right time.

But it was the first time we were marching into battle together again since 1945, and probably the first time ever that if someone caught us together before we laid our lives on the line, we could be reasonably sure that the worst punishment would be jokes. So he pulled me over there, and we kissed, and he made me promise to survive. I made him promise the same thing, even though we knew we were both lying, because this job means sacrificing everything when the stakes are that high. But I made that promise, hoping I could keep it. And it turned out I couldn't. And he spent 5 years trying to bring me back. Trying to bring us all back. And then once he did…”

“He left,” Shuri finishes. She looks up at him, biting at the inside of her bottom lip before she speaks.

“Did you know he was going to do that? Stay back in time?”

“No.” Bucky’s snorts. “But I wasn't completely surprised when he did, either.” He attempts to explain. “He loved Peggy. And he never got his time with her. When I saw him on that bench… I knew. I knew that if he'd chosen to go anywhere, it was to her.”

“And you were…okay with that?” Shuri is hesitant.

“No.” He says after a long moment. “And also, yes. Because I want him to be happy, and if he can't have that with me, then Peggy is a damn fine human being. I want her to be happy too.”

“You also deserve to be happy,” Shuri reminds him. 

“That's actually why I wanted to talk to you. I think… I think Steve thought of something. I just… need a verified genius to make it happen.”

“And you thought of me.” She sounds pleased.

“No one else can hold a candle to you. And I don't trust anyone else like I trust you.”

“Okay, then. What impossible task do you need done?” She rubs her hands together, letting his arm slide off her shoulders. 

“I need you to replicate Pym particles.”

Her eyebrows shoot skyward. 

“That's… no small ask. There's a reason why Hank Pym shut down all his experiments and disappeared off the grid. Time travel… it opens up too many possibilities, too many opportunities for harm.”

“That's what I thought at first too. I wasn't going to ask. But then I talked to Strange, and I got the weird sense that he wasn't worried about me going back. Like maybe… the past he saw was also the future he saw for me.”

“Okay. So… let's say I can do it- Say that I can manufacture Pym particles, and build you a machine that lets you use them, and that you doing that isn't going to tear a hole in the fabric of space and time. Do you think that he'll actually come back with you?”

“No.” Bucky says. “That's not why I'm going.”

“Then why…”

He pulls the slip of paper out of his pocket.

“I've sort of…got an invitation. Steve gave me this when he… came back.” He lets the smile that's trying to ghost across his lips show.

Her eyes go wide as she reads it. She reads it again, and hands it back to him.

“Okay then.” Shuri looks deeply determined. “I'll see what I can do.”


	8. Chapter 8

He takes three days to visit the farm again. It’s jarring and inspiring all at once to see how much Thesodo has grown- practically a man now and relatively unscathed from Thanos, as much as any child who grew up during the snap could be. He has some friends that he’s older than now, another boy and girl who are his siblings now because they lived with Anwota and Unamiah and become family.

Now, they’re an unusual family with five parents and three children who are figuring out the paradigms in this new world.

“It’s not so strange,” Anwota admonishes him, interpreting his puzzled glance on the first day. “When Thesodo’s father died, I had to learn to let someone else into my heart. Unamiah did not become his second mother because we knew the future, but because we chose to trust each other in the moment and build that future together. Now, we are building a new future once again, and finding that there is more to the meaning of love and family than we had imagined before. Our hearts are bigger than we know.” She smiles fondly toward Sembude, and taps his wife Chenzi’s hand with affection when she walks behind her and clasps her shoulder in passing. She nods toward where Unamiah and Ekinda are walking together and carrying water back from the river while the youngest child runs ahead. “And sometimes, we learn that watching someone else’s heart grow also grows our own.”

“Are they...?” He stood himself, regretting the rudeness in asking. Anwota fixes him with a look, the light from the fire shes’s been feeding glinting off the green and gold beads woven through her braids. 

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t my place to ask, was it?”

“Oh White Wolf...” she sighs. “Your life has given you so much wisdom and so little of it all at once. But I will answer your questions, because I think you do not ask out of idle interest, but instead out of friendship, and also out of pain.”

He glances up at her sharply. Her expression softens.

“You were gone for five years, but we did not forget you. Neither did the man you loved. Captain Rogers came to visit. First, only a week or so after the battle. He stayed in the hut that night, and we heard him crying. The next day he asked if he could take your things, keep them safe. Of course we said yes. We knew he was your Steve. We knew his grief. We knew that he needed to be close to you, what you meant to each other.” Her eyes dance mischievously. “Even if you had not sat together by the firelight with us as you did, or let the affection in your daylight touches convey that knowledge, you recall that I said we could hear him crying in your hut at night?”

His cheeks burn with the implication of what she’s saying- that they’d understood everything they’d overheard in his hit long before that. She’s clearly amused.

“The way you felt about each other was not a mystery. Unamiah was always very worried that you would burn yourselves in the sun with all the time you spent naked together out on the rocks long the river with your pale pale skin. She made burn relief balm, in case you ever needed it.”

“I appreciate that.” He chuckles, the feeling of laughter and smiling comfortable here, in the place he had practiced those things, learned to let people see him again.

“Ask your questions then.”

“When I first came here... you and Unamiah were together were together. You were happy,” he recalls.

“We still are.”

“But it no longer just the two of you.”

“It was never his the two of us. There was always Thesodo to care for,” she reminds him gently. “But I understand your meaning. We love others now as well. We have used that love to heal from impossible hardships, we have found joy in each other. And we have had to admit the times when we are wrong as well. We have changed, each of us. Brought new partners into our hearts. But we are still ourselves, what tethers us is still in place. Only now, there are more tethers, woven and intertwined so that each string is part of the net we all leave.”

“Do you ever...get jealous? Resent anyone else who has Unamiah’s heart?”

Anwota scoffs.

“Unamiah has hold of her own heart. It’s not mine to possess. Seeing someone else adore her? That is no reason for resentment. It’s is celebration. Just as she celebrates the ways that Sembude demonstrates his affection for Chenzi and me alike. And although she doesn’t love Sembude in the same manner I do... their love is no less real. The affection they share even though they do not share a bed is powerful, and precious. You come from a culture that tell you that human hearts can’t love infinitely. But your culture lies even as it says this, because it does not tell you that you must limit the number of your children than you love, or the friends you may care for. Love has the capacity to be infinite. Time is its only boundary.” She pats his hand, smiles at his pensive look.

I didn’t lose anything when I opened my heart to have more than one lover, as I didn’t lose in loving again after losing someone I loved. I only gained.”

“That seems too good to be true,” Bucky observes.

“Only if you believe that what is true usually brings heartache.” Unamiah settles next to Anwota, places more fuel upon the fire. “I believed that, once. And the life you’ve led might convince you that this is what you can expect. But there is more to hope for out of life. Disappointment is always possible, but rarely inevitable. And we can build happiness despite heartbreak.” She threads her fingers through Anwota’s, smiling at the woman she so clearly loves.

He thinks about that conversation for a long time.

Months go by. He goes back to Brooklyn, works on figuring out what he wants out of life.

He helps save the world a few more times. It’s a good feeling. Not everything, not even something he’s comfortable claiming. But it’s not nothing, and he’s not keen to give it up. He’s got scales to balance yet.

Shuri keeps updating him periodically, letting him know in vague terms that she’s making progress. But she gets called away for various crisis, and progress takes time. 

He’s gotten used to waiting by the time she calls him, tells him to make another trip to Waukanda. 

He’s fresh off a mission with Sam, grabs some shut eye in transit. He needs a shower and a meal by the time he arrives, but those needs feel more distant than they should.

He tells himself not to get ahead of himself. 

He does anyway. 

He lets himself hope, the anticipation he tries to talk himself down from wrapping around his bones instead, until he can feel the hopeful tension of it even in the tips of his fingers.

Shuri’s assistant greets him when he disembarks, escorts him to her lab. It’s empty, but before he can get antsy enough to touch anything, Shuri herself arrives, sweeping through the glass doors and securing them with a swipe at the device on her wrist.

“So?” He asks, suddenly wary to put his hope into words.

“I did it.” She grins, triumphant. “I did it, and I’ve also figure out how to key the particles to your DNA so that you’re the only one who can utilize them, even if they fall into the wrong hands.

“That’s brilliant,” he breathes, then scoops her up and spins her around. “You’re brilliant. That added layer of protection... we still have to be extremely careful about opsec, but...”

“But it’s some reassurance, yes.” She finishes for him. “All of the modeling and tests have come out exactly as predicted, well within the safety parameters I’ve set. We’re ready to move on to human trials. We’ll conduct a series of trials here in the lab, and if all goes well... I’ll clear you for travel to 1953.”

The next week is a blur that drags on forever. The trials go off without a hitch- each one only making him more anxious to be done with them altogether. And at the same time, he grows more trepidatious. 

He doesn’t trust himself to not give away that something different if he sees any of the other fact to face. The details, never. But Sam and a few of the others know him well enough now that they’ve been able to catch the distinctions between when he’s being taciturn because it’s his nature and when he’s doing it to hold something back. He writes them letters instead, locks them in a safety deposit box in Brooklyn and entrusts Strange with the key.

He spends part of the week between trials shopping for clothes, other things he’ll need- making sure nothing stands out as an obvious error, like tags in reproduction slacks that are made with a synthetic fiber that won’t be invented for another five years, or original clothing that’s faded and filled with age spots from sitting in a closet for seventy years, even though the shirt was just in the Sears catalog that spring, other tiny mistakes that could give away the entire game, or at least leave him being viewed with suspicion.

And so, when the time comes, he’s standing in the lab in Wakanda, feeling very out of place in his pale blue shirt and patterned cream slacks, hair trimmed and slicked back in what approximates the styles he’s seen in his web searches about a decade he never really lived to see. There’s a leather billfold in his wallet filled with the correct iterations of American currency, identification that should pass muster... and and an address on a little slip of paper.

His wristwatch is his lifeline, holding both the nanotechnology for his quantum suit and the extra particles for his return, locked in a secret compartment. He’s freshly showered and shaved, and despite the number of tests he’s done and the number of missions he’s been on, there’s still a twinge is his gut, like a butterfly or two is stretching its wings. He feels like he’s sixteen again and picking a girl up for a dance with half her family looking on.

He waits on his mark while Shuri rattles through all of her final checks, then turns to him, walks onto the launch platform and gives him a fierce hug.

“Follow your heart,” she whispers, and it’s the most reassuring way he can think of for her to have framed the most terrifying advice he’s ever been given. The freedom and risk it implies is staggering, foreign even, and he almost can’t believe he’s doing this. He’s not the same kid who was a Howling Commando in a war that people today only remember from the dusty pages of history books and slickly edited films. He’s less, that that and he’s more too. He fought battles now he’d never have imagined back then... and battles back then that people struggle to comprehend today. But this... this is something different.

This is about him, and what he isn’t even allowing himself to hope for- not some grand purpose or righteous cause he’s a soldier for. He’s felt guilty about that, almost incessantly since he decided to do this. But it hasn’t stopped him. 

He doesn’t know anymore if that means he’s broken, or that he’s healing.

There are so many questions he’s about to ask of the universe that he’s been hoping he’ll like the answers to...and standing at this precipice, he has no way of knowing how much of this he’ll wind up regretting. But he’s certain that not trying will be a regret he’d always carry with him. He has a chance to build his own happiness, and he’s stepping up to take it. Today.

As Shuri initiates the sequence of commands to send him rocketing to the quantum realm and back in time, he meets and holds her gaze.

“Thank you,” he tells her. There’s more he’s trying to say with that than he really even understands himself, and the way she meets his eyes tells him that despite her youth, she understands some of what he can’t even begin to articulate. Maybe not all of it, but enough. And then the countdown begins, a moments later he’s hurtling through the quantum realm.

His landing isn’t entirely smooth. He arrives with a jolt behind a large collection mailbox and stumbles to his knees. He dismisses his quantum suit before standing, trusting the army green box to shield him a bit from view. He circles around it, pretends to drop a letter in, in the event that anyone is watching, and takes it as an opportunity to get his bearings.

The house he’s looking for is just down the street, a pale yellow house with a lot of charm, nested back from the road a bit among trees and gardens. He makes his way toward it, nerves building with every step. There are cheerful flowers in pots on the steps and along the porch railing. He lets his fingertips brush the concrete of one of the planters as he climbs the stairs, wonders if it’s Peggy that chose them, keeps them watered and looking picture perfect, or if Steve has taken up gardening. The idea of Steve as a man who putters about the garden, watering geraniums is as foreign as it is charming.

It strikes him once again how objectively insane this idea is. Steve might be angry with him for coming, he might think that any version of Bucky in this timeline has to be the Winter Soldier and try to lay him out on sight. It might be Peggy who answers the door, and he doesn’t know if she’d ask him, or deck him right there on her front porch. He’s time-traveled here with the vague endorsement of a honest-to-god Sorcerer, so really, anything is possible.

He realizes he’s stalling, doesn’t want to look suspicious to the neighbors, so he sets his jaw and knocks.

There are footsteps coming from inside the house- steady, unhurried, unconcerned. And then, the door is opening, and it’s Steve on the other side. Steve who looks at him, eyes lit up in astonishment and says…

“Buck?”

“In the flesh,” he grins, always one to default to humor when his nerves get the best of him. He holds up his left hand ruefully. “Mostly.”

And then Steve is hugging him, enfolding him in his arms right there on his front porch. It’s a damn good things Bucky’s also got a version of the Super Soldier Serum coursing through his veins, because this hug might crack some ribs on a normal human.

“I can’t believe it. You’re here. You’re really here.” He steps back, urges Bucky through the doorway, lets the door start to swing shut behind them. “How?”

Bucky holds up the piece of paper Steve had given him months ago and years from now.

“Kind of had a bit of an invitation.”

Steve gapes at him for a second, astonishment and what seems like delight in his expression. And then Bucky has his arms full of Steve Rogers again, but this time Steve’s mouth is on his, desperate and demanding, and Bucky lets himself be slammed up against the wall, Steve’s hand cushioning his skull, fingers sliding through his hair, directing him so that their mouths align to perfection. He’s on fire, in the best possible way, kissing Steve back with the same desperate hunger that Steve is exhibiting. They’re pressed together the entire length of their bodies, and every nerve ending Bucky possesses has roared to life, overwhelming his sense with the scent and taste and feel of Steve.

Steve’s hand is on his chest, his ribs, his ass, urging him closer, making him moan at the familiar ways they fit together, and his cock has gotten on board with the whole idea so quickly that he’s almost light-headed. He clutches at Steve’s shirt, just for something to grab onto.

When Steve finally pulls away with obvious reluctance, he’s panting, their lips are scraped from each other’s stubble, and he looks practically giddy.

“It worked. You’re here. Peggy and talked about how it could happen, what it would take. But… it actually worked. You’re actually here.”

“You and Peggy talked about this?” Bucky’s mind is moving too slow, still drunk on Steve’s lips, the familiar scent of him. “She knows about this?”

“Knows about it?” Steve scoffs. “It was practically her idea. Her plan, at least. She’s going to be absolutely thrilled that it worked. We’ll have to telephone her. But first,” he brushes Bucky’s hair back from his eyes. “We should take a moment for another proper hello.”

The kiss he captures Bucky’s mouth in then is probably considered more improper than anything else.


End file.
